Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 2026

Garden Media LLC ("we," "us," or "our") operates Garden Social at gardennj.social. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to everyone who visits or uses the Platform.

1. Eligibility

Garden Social is intended for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use the Platform. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will terminate it and delete the associated personal information. If you believe someone under 18 has provided us with personal information, contact us immediately at admin@gardennj.social.

2. Information We Collect

Information you provide:

  • Email address and password (for account creation and login)
  • Username, display name, bio, profile photo, and location
  • Posts, comments, direct messages, and events you create
  • Photos, images, and GIFs you upload or select
  • Location tags you choose to add to content (county/town)
  • Feedback you submit through the feedback form

Information generated by your use of the Platform:

  • Votes, comments, follows, bookmarks, reposts, and event RSVPs
  • Blocks you create (and blocks created against you)
  • Notifications generated by your activity and others' activity toward you

Information collected automatically:

  • Usage data (pages visited, features used, interactions)
  • Device and browser information
  • IP address
  • Cookies and session tokens for authentication

3. How We Use Your Information

  • To provide and operate the Garden Social platform
  • To authenticate your account and maintain your session
  • To send transactional emails (account confirmation, password reset)
  • To moderate content for safety and compliance with our Terms
  • To enforce blocks and other safety features
  • To improve the platform and understand how it is used
  • To communicate important updates about the service

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it with data brokers. We do not use your data for advertising or targeted advertising, and we do not use it for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

4. What Is Public on Garden Social

Garden Social is a public platform. Please assume that anything you post is visible to anyone on the internet, including people who are not logged in and search engines that index the site.

Publicly visible:

  • Your username, display name, bio, profile photo, and location
  • Your posts, comments, images, and events, including any location tags
  • Your follower and following lists
  • Vote counts and repost counts on content

Not publicly visible:

  • Your email address and password
  • Your direct messages
  • Your bookmarks
  • Which specific account cast a particular vote
  • Your blocks

5. Direct Messages

Direct messages are private between participants, but they are not end-to-end encrypted. They are stored in our database and are technically accessible to Garden Media LLC. We do not read direct messages as a matter of routine, and we access them only where necessary to investigate a safety report, respond to a legal request, or maintain the service.

If you block someone, the conversation is removed from the blocked person's view. It is retained in your own view. We do this deliberately so that a person experiencing harassment does not lose the record of it by blocking their harasser.

6. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate Garden Social:

  • Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage
  • Vercel — platform hosting and deployment
  • Resend — delivery of transactional email (confirmation, password reset)
  • OpenAI — automated text content moderation
  • AWS Rekognition — automated image content moderation
  • Anthropic — AI summarization of public records for our automated accounts
  • Giphy — GIF search and delivery
  • Google Maps Platform — address autocomplete for events
  • OpenGraph.io — link preview generation
  • Ticketmaster, RunSignup, and public government data sources including the New Jersey Legislature — event and civic content aggregation
  • GitHub — code hosting and scheduled jobs that power our automated accounts

Content you post may be transmitted to our moderation providers to check it against our Terms of Service. When you search for a GIF, your search term is sent to Giphy, which applies its own privacy policy and may set its own cookies. When you use address autocomplete, what you type is sent to Google. Each of these services has its own privacy policy governing its handling of that data.

7. Automated Accounts and AI-Generated Content

Garden Social operates automated accounts (including Garden Sports, Garden Events, Garden Politics, and Garden Government) that aggregate publicly available news, sports information, event listings, and government records. Some of this content is summarized using AI, and posts involving AI summarization are labeled as such. These accounts do not read your personal data, and your content is never used to train any third-party AI model.

8. Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies solely for authentication and session management. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not run third-party analytics that profile you across sites. Embedded third-party content — such as GIFs from Giphy or video players — may set its own cookies when it loads.

9. Data Retention and Deletion

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account at any time from your account settings. Deletion removes your account and associated personal information within 30 days, except where we are required to retain something by law or where it is needed to resolve an active safety or abuse investigation.

Two things survive deletion in limited form: aggregate counts (such as the vote total on someone else's post) are not recalculated, and copies of your content that other users have quoted or reposted may persist. Neither is linked to your identity after deletion.

10. Your Rights and Choices

Regardless of where you live, you have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you
  • Correct inaccurate information in your profile
  • Delete your account and associated data
  • Obtain a portable copy of your content and data
  • Opt out of non-essential communications

New Jersey residents have these rights under the New Jersey Data Privacy Act, and residents of other states have comparable rights under their own laws. Garden Media LLC is below the size thresholds that make those laws mandatory for us, but we extend these rights to every user regardless. We do not sell personal data or use it for targeted advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of on those fronts — and we honor browser-level opt-out signals such as Global Privacy Control by default.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at admin@gardennj.social. We will respond within 45 days. We will not discriminate against you for exercising them. If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our response.

11. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including encrypted data transmission (HTTPS), secure authentication via Supabase, and row-level security on our database that restricts access to your data at the database layer. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.

12. Where Your Data Is Stored

Garden Social is operated from the United States and your data is stored on servers located in the United States. If you access the Platform from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The date at the top reflects the most recent revision. We will notify you of significant changes via email or a prominent notice on the Platform. Continued use of Garden Social after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

14. Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests:
Garden Media LLC
Email: admin@gardennj.social
Website: gardennj.social

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