Why these Terms of Use exist

These Terms of Use exist to make the basic ground rules plain. Evidence Matters is built around public claim review, source links, reader verification, public records, civic education, and evidence based commentary. That kind of work depends on clarity. Readers should know what the site is, what the site is not, what kinds of submissions are allowed, how donations may be used, and what responsibilities stay with the user.

This page is written in plain language on purpose. It is still a legal terms page, but it should be readable by regular people. If you need legal advice about your specific situation, talk to a licensed attorney.

1. Terms of Use acceptance

By accessing or using this website, you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree, do not use the site.

2. Terms of Use and what this site is

Evidence Matters publishes analysis of public claims and links to sources so readers can audit the work. The site may include opinion and commentary, public education, evidence review, fundraising links, and the Evidence Matters Truth Challenge. It is presented as a claim audit and civic education project, not as professional advice.

If you want to understand how the review process works, start with How We Verify and Evidence vs Rumors.

3. Not legal, medical, financial, tax, or professional advice

Content is provided for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice, medical advice, financial advice, tax advice, investment advice, election law advice, campaign finance advice, or professional services. You are responsible for your own decisions and actions.

Nothing on this website creates an attorney client relationship, advisor client relationship, fiduciary relationship, tax advisor relationship, or other professional relationship.

4. Terms of Use for user conduct

You agree not to:

• Use the site for unlawful purposes.
• Attempt to disrupt the site or gain unauthorized access to systems or accounts.
• Post or submit content that is harassing, defamatory, hateful, or threatening.
• Submit personal data you do not have the right to share, including private addresses, phone numbers, or private medical information.
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation.
• Submit altered, forged, misleading, or deceptively edited material as if it were authentic evidence.
• Use the site to threaten, harass, stalk, intimidate, or target any person.

5. Terms of Use for submissions and tips

If you submit a claim, link, screenshot, document, image, video, message, statement, or tip, you represent that you have the right to share it. Do not submit illegal content or private personal information.

We may review, edit, refuse, reject, archive, or remove submissions at our discretion. We do not guarantee publication, response time, review time, verification, approval, payment, or outcomes.

Submitting material does not mean Evidence Matters agrees with it, verifies it, endorses it, accepts it as true, or promises to publish it.

If you are submitting a claim for review, the best starting point is the Send for Review page.

6. Evidence Matters Truth Challenge

The Evidence Matters Truth Challenge is governed by the official Contest Rules and FAQ, the Truth Challenge page, these Terms of Use, and any other posted challenge terms.

The challenge focuses on major 2020 election claims and related January 6 claims that were promoted, repeated, and used to mislead the public. Eligible claims, review procedures, evidence standards, payment eligibility, and award conditions may be updated on the official challenge pages.

No submission wins automatically. A submission must be reviewed, verified, and determined to meet the official requirements for a valid claim before any payment may be approved.

Awards are not guaranteed. Payment depends on available funds, rule compliance, identity verification, tax review, legal or compliance review, payment processor requirements, and the final decision under the posted rules.

The first public fundraising goal is $10,000, but the challenge fund or potential award amount may grow beyond $10,000 depending on public support, available funds, fees, approved expenses, legal requirements, compliance review, and other lawful project costs.

7. Donations, fundraising, and use of funds

No purchase, donation, payment, or contribution is required to submit evidence or participate in the Evidence Matters Truth Challenge.

Donating does not improve anyone’s chance of receiving payment. This is not a lottery, raffle, sweepstakes, or game of chance.

Donations to The Evidence Matters Truth Challenge support both the prize fund and the operating costs required to run, promote, protect, and verify the challenge.

Approved expenses may include website hosting, domain costs, software, payment processing fees, fundraising platform fees, advertising, promotion, research tools, legal or compliance review, evidence review, security, documentation, administration, and other costs directly connected to operating the challenge.

Contributions may be made through third party fundraising platforms or payment processors. Those platforms may charge fees, apply their own rules, delay payouts, reject payments, process refunds, handle chargebacks, or impose requirements outside the control of Evidence Matters.

8. Operating expenses and prize fund transparency

Because Evidence Matters is still an early stage project, a fixed monthly operating allowance may be used for approved expenses. This allows the project to keep the website running, promote the challenge, document the work, review submissions, and handle basic compliance needs while the fund is still small.

As the fund grows, Evidence Matters may move to a percentage based expense cap so more money can remain dedicated to the prize pool.

Published fund amounts, jackpot amounts, contribution totals, and available balances may change as donations, fees, refunds, chargebacks, operating costs, taxes, payment processing costs, legal or compliance costs, and other legitimate project expenses are recorded.

A public jackpot amount may not equal total gross donations received. It may reflect deductions for platform fees, payment processing fees, refunds, chargebacks, approved operating expenses, legal or compliance costs, taxes, and other lawful project costs.

The goal is to keep the challenge real, keep the project operating, and keep donors informed about how money is being used.

9. Refunds, taxes, and no investment

Contributions are generally nonrefundable unless there is a duplicate charge, payment error, suspected fraud, chargeback, or another issue handled by the fundraising platform or payment processor.

Contributions are not being held for refund if no valid claim is approved.

A donation is support for the challenge and the public work around it. It is not an investment, purchase, deposit, loan, ownership interest, contract for services, or guarantee that any person will win the challenge.

Unless otherwise stated in writing, donations are not represented as tax deductible charitable contributions. Evidence Matters does not provide tax advice. Donors, submitters, and any potential award recipients are responsible for understanding any tax consequences that may apply to them.

10. Remaining funds and mission use

If no valid claim is approved for payment by the final deadline, or if the challenge is closed, modified, replaced, or no longer able to continue as originally planned, remaining funds may be used to continue the Evidence Matters mission.

That mission may include anti disinformation work, public education, evidence based research, media literacy, civic accountability, public records research, publishing, promotion, advertising, lawful advocacy, verification work, or other related lawful purposes.

Depending on the amount of funds available and the applicable legal requirements, remaining funds may be used directly by Evidence Matters, held in a dedicated account, transferred to a legally appropriate organization, or used to create, support, or transfer funds to a nonprofit, political action committee, Super PAC, independent expenditure committee, or another lawful structure.

Any future political accountability work must be lawful and may include independent public communications that support or oppose public officials or candidates based on their public record, statements, actions, and relationship to misinformation, election denial, January 6, political extremism, corruption, or anti democratic conduct.

No specific organization, PAC, Super PAC, candidate, campaign, legal structure, or long term fund is being promised at this time. Any future structure will depend on available funds, applicable law, compliance requirements, administrative costs, legal guidance, and the best available way to continue the Evidence Matters mission.

11. Intellectual property

Unless otherwise noted, site content is owned by Evidence Matters or used with permission. You may share links to pages and quote short excerpts with attribution. You may not copy, republish, scrape, mass reproduce, or sell substantial portions of site content without written permission.

12. Sources, research, and AI assistance

Evidence Matters uses publicly available information to review public claims. Sources may include government records, court records, official statements, public reports, public databases, transcripts, archived material, news reporting, academic sources, legal filings, public speeches, public social media posts, public videos, and other documents that readers may review for themselves.

Some content on this website may be researched, drafted, summarized, organized, edited, checked, or improved with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools. These tools may help explain public information, compare claims to available evidence, organize source material, improve readability, identify possible sources, or prepare educational content.

AI tools can make mistakes. Evidence Matters does not ask readers to trust AI by itself. Readers should review the cited sources, check the original records when available, and make their own judgment based on verifiable evidence.

AI assistance does not replace human judgment, source review, correction requests, reader verification, or direct review of original documents.

The goal of Evidence Matters is not to replace independent verification. The goal is to make claims easier to check by pointing readers toward sources, records, documentation, and evidence that can be inspected directly.

13. Public figure commentary and matters of public concern

Evidence Matters publishes commentary, analysis, opinion, criticism, and educational content about public claims, public figures, political statements, government conduct, elections, media narratives, public policy, and matters of public concern.

Some content may include opinion, interpretation, commentary, rhetorical criticism, political criticism, satire, parody, strong language, or advocacy. Opinion and commentary should not be understood as stating undisclosed facts. Readers are encouraged to review the cited sources and decide for themselves whether they agree with the analysis.

When Evidence Matters discusses Donald Trump, elected officials, candidates, media figures, public officials, public figures, organizations, political parties, campaigns, government agencies, or political movements, the discussion is intended as commentary on matters of public concern.

Statements about lawsuits, criminal cases, civil cases, investigations, indictments, court rulings, jury verdicts, settlements, public records, or official proceedings should be read in context. Where possible, Evidence Matters attempts to distinguish between allegations, claims, findings, rulings, verdicts, official records, and opinion.

Evidence Matters does not claim that every article is complete, current, or error free. Information may change over time. Readers should verify important claims using original sources whenever possible.

14. Corrections, clarifications, and retractions

Evidence Matters takes accuracy seriously. If a factual error is identified, we may correct, clarify, update, add context to, or remove content as appropriate.

If you believe any statement on this website is inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, misleading, or unfair, please contact us and identify the specific statement, the page where it appears, and the source or evidence supporting your correction request.

Correction requests should include the specific page URL, the exact statement at issue, an explanation of the alleged error, and supporting documentation.

Submitting a correction request does not guarantee that content will be changed. Evidence Matters will review correction requests in good faith and may update content when reliable evidence shows that a correction, clarification, update, or removal is warranted.

Evidence Matters may decline correction requests that are unsupported, abusive, vague, threatening, made in bad faith, or based only on disagreement with opinion, interpretation, criticism, or commentary.

15. Terms of Use for third party links

This site links to third party websites and documents for evidence and reference. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content, policies, accuracy, security, availability, changes, or continued access.

Common reference sources may include public records, government agencies, court databases, official documents, public archives, and major reporting outlets such as AP and Reuters.

A link to a third party source does not mean Evidence Matters controls, endorses, guarantees, or agrees with everything on that third party website.

16. Terms of Use disclaimers

The site is provided “as is” and “as available.” We make no warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, secure, current, complete, accurate, or error free.

Evidence Matters does not guarantee that any source linked on the site will remain available, unchanged, accurate, or complete after publication.

Evidence Matters does not guarantee that any donation goal will be reached, that any submission will be approved, that any award will be paid, or that any specific legal, political, educational, fundraising, or public outcome will occur.

Readers are responsible for reviewing sources, checking original records, considering context, and making their own decisions about the claims discussed on this website.

17. Dispute resolution and mediation

Before filing any lawsuit or legal claim against Evidence Matters, its operators, owners, contributors, or related parties, you agree to first contact Evidence Matters through the contact page and describe the dispute in writing.

The notice should identify the specific page, statement, action, donation, submission, award issue, or other matter involved, explain the basis for the dispute, and include any supporting documentation you want Evidence Matters to review.

The parties agree to make a good faith effort to resolve the dispute informally before litigation. If the dispute cannot be resolved informally, the parties agree to participate in nonbinding mediation before filing a lawsuit, unless emergency legal relief is required by law.

Mediation will take place in Michigan, remotely by video, or in another mutually agreed format. Unless the parties agree otherwise, each side will pay its own costs and will share the mediator’s fee equally.

This mediation requirement does not prevent Evidence Matters from correcting, clarifying, updating, or removing content at its discretion. It also does not prevent either party from seeking emergency relief when legally necessary.

18. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Evidence Matters and its operators will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, revenues, data, goodwill, reputation, opportunity, donation expectation, prize expectation, or other intangible losses, whether incurred directly or indirectly, arising from your use of the site.

Your use of the site is at your own risk.

19. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms of Use from time to time. Changes take effect when posted on this page. Continued use of the site means you accept the updated terms.

Challenge rules, donation language, expense policies, refund language, and related terms may be clarified or updated for legal, compliance, safety, administrative, fundraising, or fairness reasons. When practical, material updates should be explained in plain language.

20. Terms of Use contact

Questions about these terms, correction requests, source questions, mediation notices, donation questions, challenge questions, or concerns about website content can be sent through the contact page.

Contact Evidence Matters