Terms and Conditions
These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) govern your use of any and all blogs, message boards, discussion groups, comment/feedback forms, and other online public forums provided or sponsored by Keck Medical Center of USC (including Keck School of Medicine, Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital) (collectively, “we,” “us” or “USC”), including those hosted on third-party social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (collectively, “Online Public Forums”). By making a submission to or accessing any of the Online Public Forums, you accept and agree to be bound by these Terms. USC may at any time revise these Terms and will post revised Terms at www.keckmedicine.org/social-media-terms. Your continued use or accessing of the Online Public Forums following the posting of changed Terms will confirm your acceptance of the revised Terms.
USC welcomes users to submit comments to Online Public Forums, and we look forward to hearing from you. To promote respectful discussion within the Online Public Forums, we request that you be courteous and productive and avoid comments that are profane, obscene, offensive, sexually explicit, inappropriate, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable. Social media often fosters debate of an issue; participants must engage in these exchanges with mutual respect for others’opinions.
Although USC reserves the right to delete user posts due to content, USC assumes no responsibility for posts submitted by users. You should expect that users may post items that could be offensive, distressing, or inflammatory to you or other users, and you assume any and all risks of reviewing such content. USC is not responsible for any such materials posted. USC requests that you not respond with anger when seeing such a post, but instead alert the administrator of the Online Public Forums to the post, who may, but is not obligated to, take some action. You acknowledge that USC has no obligation to, and does not in its normal course, prescreen, monitor or review the materials posted online. USC does not exert editorial control over any materials posted online.
IMPORTANT NOTE: None of the Online Public Forums is intended to provide professional medical advice or to substitute for professional medical advice. You should NOT use or rely on any information obtained from Online Public Forums, including postings by USC or any other user, to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health or medical condition. USC is under no obligation to monitor the Online Public Forums and the occasional moderators are not health providers. Always consult with your doctor or other qualified health care provider before starting any treatment, medicine, diet, fitness or health program. You should never disregard the medical advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider, or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in any of the Online Public Forums. You acknowledge and agree that any action or non-action by you in reliance upon any information obtained from the Online Public Forums is entirely at your own risk and that under no circumstances will we be responsible or liable in any way for any injury (including death), loss or damage resulting from such reliance by you.
With respect to the privacy of users and their families, please be advised that all user postings to the Online Public Forums will be publicly available on the Internet and therefore publicly accessible without limitation or protection of any kind. You must take full responsibility for protecting your personal information from exposure on the Internet or in the Online Public Forums. Understand that any personal information you publish or share through Online Public Forums will automatically become public information and accessible to others and that you do so entirely and solely at your own risk.
You, and not USC, are solely and entirely responsible and liable for any and all content that you post or otherwise transmit via the Online Public Forums. By accessing or submitting content in any of Online Public Forums, you grant to USC a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to any content that you post or submit to the Online Public Forums, which includes the right for USC or any other party it designates, to use, copy, transmit, excerpt, publish, distribute, publicly display, create derivative works of, host, index, cache, tag, encode, modify or adapt (including without limitation the right to adapt to streaming, downloading, broadcast, mobile, digital, thumbnail, scanning or other technologies) in any form or media now known or hereinafter developed. By submitting content or posting a comment, you are consenting to its display and publication on the Site and for related uses. Content that, in the sole and absolute judgment of USC, contains any of the following elements is strictly prohibited:
- Material that we determine is threatening, harassing, obscene, violent, abusive, discriminatory, hateful, defamatory, libelous, slanderous, or hostile towards any individual or entity.
- Confidential or personal information, including phone numbers, email addresses, or other contact information for yourself or any other individual or entity in the body of your comment.
- Material that conflicts with any policy of USC or that is inconsistent with USC’s mission or purposes, including political postings.
- Material that infringes or violates the rights of any person or entity, including rights of privacy, rights of publicity, and intellectual property rights.
- Material that promotes or advertises a commercial product or solicits business or membership or financial or other support in any business, group or organization except those that are officially sponsored by Keck Medical Center of USC (including Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital).
- Chain letters, posts that include the same comment multiple times, or otherwise distribute “spam”.
- Post material or comment content that is “off topic” (i.e., not relating to the topic that is being discussed or commented on).
We reserve the right, though we do not assume any obligation, to screen out or delete any user submission prior to or after posting for any reason, including, without limitation, if we believe or suspect, in our sole discretion and judgment, that the submission is or may be in violation of any of these Terms, or may otherwise expose or subject us to potential liability to any third party. We may block or terminate any posts or even the access of any user who violates these Terms. USC is not responsible for the content posted or transmitted through the Online Public Forums by any user.
We further reserve the right to change or discontinue the content on the Online Public Forums at any time and for any reason, including discontinuing our participation or the availability of any feature, functionality or content, without notice and with no liability to USC.
We also reserve the right to ban future posts or participation from any user who repeatedly violates any of the above restrictions. We may enact such bans by refusing posts from specific email addresses or IP addresses, or through other means as necessary.
You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your user name and password to the Online Public Forums and for prohibiting any other person from using your login information or viewing content on the Online Public Forums using your login credentials. You are solely responsible and liable for any use of your login credentials in connection with the Online Public Forums. You represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old.
You must not use the Online Public Forums, or any data or services provided through the Online Public Forums, in a manner that could damage, disable or impair the services or content. You must not attempt to gain unlawful or unauthorized access to the administration of the Online Public Forums, the computer systems or networks connected to any server associated with the Online Public Forums through hacking, password mining, or any other improper or illegal means.
USC may post links to other sites, advertisements, reference materials or lists of resources of third parties (collectively, “Third Party Resources”) to the Online Public Forums, but USC has no responsibility and accepts no liability for the content or availability of the Third Party Resources. The Third Party Resources are provided solely for the convenience of users and the inclusion of the Third Party Resources should not be interpreted as any sort of endorsement by USC. You agree to assume all risks associated with viewing or obtaining information from the Third Party Resources and are responsible for any losses or damage that you may suffer as a result of the Third Party Resources.
The Online Public Forums may operate on other social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, for example. In addition to these Terms, you are subject to those entities’ terms of service.
Information and content on the Online Public Forums may be protected by trademark, copyright and other laws. Except as expressly provided in these Terms, nothing contained in the Terms will be interpreted as conferring by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right under any patent, trademark or copyright of USC or any third party. You are not permitted to use any trademark, logo, trade dress or other intellectual property of USC without the prior written consent of USC.
USC grants you a non-exclusive, limited and revocable license to view and use the Online Public Forums. You may view content only for your personal and non-commercial purposes. You may not modify, use, download, upload, print, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, post, transmit, modify, adapt, or distribute any content in whole or in part without USC’s express written authorization.
USC is obligated to comply with governmental requests, subpoenas, and court orders and has the right to protect other users, or to ensure the integrity of operations and, for these reasons, USC may monitor, access, limit and disclose any information and content it considers necessary or appropriate, including, without limitation, account information (name, email address, etc.), IP addressing, usage history, posted content and data analytics.
USC makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy, availability or completeness of the information provided in the Online Public Forums. The Online Public Forums and all related content, products and services are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. USC expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied,