About

Veto is an open content sharing platform, built from the ground up to support the upload, download and viewing of video, audio and photography content. Intended to be an alternative content hosting site, built to offer people a more open and uncensored platform.

Veto is intended to be simplistic, yet a reliable & powerful content sharing platform. A place where you can share not just videos but audio files and images with strong intentions to contribute to the world wide web.

Veto does not rely on other content hosting platforms. The entire site has been written by myself, Video and audio encoding is done using FFMPEG an open source library run on my own servers. Any profits or donations Veto receives, a percentage will be passed on to these open source projects. Alternately you can donate to these open source projects directly. Support

Is Veto free?

Veto is free to a certain degree. In short you can use all of the funtions and features on Veto upto certain points. You can read more about the limits here. The reason for these limits are quite simple... Video, audio and image hosting is expensive. Without limits and people upgrading to Veto plus / premium the site cannot exist. Having a system where users directly pay for a service, it removes the need to treat users as products. Bombarding you with ads and creating an algorithm that favours particular content or subjects becomes redundant.

Veto plus / premium costs 7.00 / 37.00 GBP per month. There is no minimum contract, you can opt out anytime. A premium account gives you a huge amount of storage and usage, and greatly supports the costs incurred by such a site. You can view subscriptions here.

Usability

Veto is in "public beta" meaning it's open to be used and tried out by anyone interested. Anyone using Veto at this time should expect to get some bugs/issues as the code is not yet ready for general use. should expect a high level of stability and performance. Some aspects may not yet be complete and therefore not useable.

If you want to use the full site, try uploading content etc. But don't want to make your own account yet, you can use the credentials below.

You can access the full site using credentials
Username publicveto
Password Publicveto934

Update May 2021, the public account has been closed. You'll need to create your own personal account to fully utilise Veto services.

Browser requirements

Veto is being built using the latest techniques and technologies. This make's Veto fast, efficient and easy to use. This however requires you to access Veto on an up to date web browser.

Use this tool to find out more information about the browser you are currently using.

Browser Version Released Issues repeported Recommended
Chrome > 40 January 21, 2015 No issues
Firefox > 38 May 12, 2015 No issues
Internet Explorer > 10 September 4, 2012 No issues
Oprea > 30 June 9, 2015 No issues
Safari > 5 June 7, 2010 Display / layout issues
IOS (Safari) > 9.3.5 August 25, 2016 No issues

Note: Veto will still work on older versions of browsers, but the versions stated above have been tested to ensure Veto is working as intended. Keeping your browser up to date will give you the best experience across the web, not just Veto.

Learn more about how to check the version of your browser.

Having difficulty using Veto? Contact me

Uploading and processing

Uploading content to Veto has been designed to be simple and efficient.

You are required to give your content a title, description is optional but recommended. After clicking `continue` you will be able to select the file you wish to upload. Your upload will start automatically, it is vital to keep your browser window open and stay connected to the internet during the course of the upload.

If your content is considered explicit I'd appreciate it if you ticked the checkbox for this before uploading. Any content found to be explicit will be updated by Veto. If you're found to continuously upload explicit content without marking it as so, your account may be disabled. Learn more

On a completed upload you will be redirected to the upload base, Veto will then process this upload.

Flow

Once your content has been uploaded to the system, it will need to be processed so it can be viewed on Veto. There is nothing you need to do at this stage, but you can keep track of the progress of your content in the upload base.

The flow of a successful upload

Status Meaning
Pending Your request has been acknowledged. Veto is waiting for you to upload your content, if your content hasn't been uploaded within 12 hours this record will be discarded.
Queuing Veto has confirmed your content was successfully uploaded to the system and it has now joined the queue to be processed. Your upload will typically queue for around 10 minutes.
Processing Your content is now being processed. Veto is creating the necessary files for you content to be available across the web.
Upload complete Your content has been processed successfully.

Note: Uploading files can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours, this largely depends on file size you're uploading.

Errors in the upload process

Status Meaning Address
Abandoned Your content was not uploaded fully, the cause for this is likely due to you closing the browser before your content was fully uploaded or your internet connection dropped during the transaction. Re-upload your content.
File size to large The file size of the content you are attempting to upload exceeds Veto's limit. Reduce the size of your content to meet the required limitations, and then re-upload.
Duplicate content The file already exists on Veto. Edit your content so that it is unique, and then re-upload. Be aware Veto does not support the upload of copyright content, refer to our Terms of service for more information.
Not a supported file The file type is not supported by Veto. If the file extension matches one of Veto's supported formats, it's likely the file has been tampered with. Change the format of your content to match one of Veto's supported formats, and then re-upload.
Failure This could be down to Veto, so an automatic re-attempted will be made. However if it fails again it is likely due to an encoding issue with the file. if two attempts have been made Veto will not try to process this file again. If your content fails 2 times it will be discarded and you should check the file is error free before attempting to re-upload.

Note: Veto will manage uploads without the need for any interaction from the user, if your content fails 2 times it will be discarded and you should check the file is error free before attempting to re-upload.

File encoding

media dimensions aspect ratio audio bitrate video bitrate completed format
Image 960×540 pixels 21:9 N/A N/A PNG, JPEG, JPG, GIF
Video 960×540 pixels 21:9 128 kBit/s 500 kBit/s WebM, MP4
Audio N/A N/A 128 kBit/s N/A Flac, MP3

Note: These are the standard encoding settings Veto will aim to achieve, some aspects may vary depending on the content you upload.

End-points

Upload end-points are the physical locations where you are transferring data to when uploading content. Typically the closer you are to the end-point, the faster the upload speed will be. You can manually select which region you want to upload to, or you can let Veto detect the closest region depending on your public ip address.

Upload end-point selection only affects where you upload to, and is a temporary location before being processed. After Veto has processed your upload it will be stored and served only from Europe.

Options

Veto gives you some additional options to manage how your content is displayed and viewed. These options can be set before you upload or anytime after the content is live.

Display options

Veto is a site built to share content. Although you can upload content that is not public there may be limits to the amount of Private/Password Protected content you can upload.

option function
Public The default display option, and it means your content is available to everyone. It will appear in the search results and recommended media across Veto.
Private Your content will not appear anywhere on Veto, the only way for this content to be found is by the URL. This option is good if you want to share your content with just friends, family or with a specific audience from your own website.
Password Protected Your content will not appear anywhere on Veto, for anyone to access this content they would need the URL, and the password created by Veto. Only the author will have access to this password. You are free to distribute the password as you wish, anyone with these credentials will be granted access to the content for 360 minutes (the maximum duration of any upload), before needing to re-enter the password. You can change the password anytime making the previous one invalid.
Personal Your content will not appear anywhere on Veto, You will need to be logged into the account that uploaded the content to be granted access.
Paywall Your content will not appear anywhere on Veto, You will need to be logged into the account that uploaded the content to be granted access, or pay a fee set by the account holder.

Note: To update the password on password protected content already uploaded, change the content to private, then back to password protected. This will generate a new password and invalidate the previous.

To access password protected content you need to state the 12 character password in the URL. There are two ways you can achieve this, see examples below:

https://veto.social/v/[ media id ]/[ password ]

https://veto.social/view?id=[ media id ]&password=[ password ]

Embedding content

You can embed content hosted on Veto onto another website using a html iframe. To achieve this, click on the 3 dots located under the bottom right corner of the content you wish to embed.
You'll be presented with the embed code that will look like this:

<iframe src="https://www.veto.social/e/[ media id ]/" width="840px" height="360px" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Simply place this piece of code onto your website where you wish it to apear. You can change the "width" and "height" parameters to fit your website layout, using fixed pixel sizes or percentages.

By default "allowfullscreen" attribute will be present. If you'd prefer not to allow full screen viewing when embedding content, remove this attribute.

Sharing and viewing

Veto is designed to be a more open, content sharing platform, therefore you can enable downloading on your media. This basically means a download button will appear below your content whenever anyone views it. Anyone with access to view this content will be able to download it with the click of a button.

option function
Enable downloading Enable downloading is disabled by default, enabling the download option means anyone with access to view this content will be able to download it with the click of a button.
Enable comments Comments are enabled by default, meaning you and viewers can comment on the content. Disabling comments will mean no one, including yourself will be able to submit any comments about the content.
Explicit content If your content is marked as explicit, Veto will take some extra precautions to warn any viewers before playing or showing this content.

Note: Any content that is viewable to a user can be downloaded if they have the technical knowhow to do so. Downloading is disabled by default, but this does not mean your content is completely safe from being downloaded. If it's on the internet, it can be stolen. Whether good or bad this is the nature of the internet. For this reason you should think carefully about what you upload anywhere online.

Torrent distribution

Veto is moving towards supporting torrent distribution.

Once your content reaches 250 views, and you've "enable download", Veto will automatically create a *.torrent file. That anyone is free to download, giving them the ability to download and distribute that particular content amongst themselves.

A *.torrent file is a fraction of the size of the actual data to be downloaded. This small file tells the torrent client what to download and where to start looking. This makes Veto less centralised and more open to the use of anonymous users.

Be aware that although the initial seeding of torrents will be done by Veto. Once part of the torrent network, Veto will be unable to stop the distribution of the content that happens exclusively using a peer to peer network..

This feature has been tested on BitTorrent and µTorrent, both have free versions to download.

Limitations

Veto has limitations to the content you can upload, these can depend on what type of account you have. Video, audio and image content is supported in various formats. Make sure the content you upload conforms to the limitations of Veto otherwise it will be rejected.

Content dimension limitations

media maximum minimum
Image N/A 960 x 540 pixels
Video N/A N/A
Audio N/A N/A

Note: Images are required to be larger or equal to a certain size to be successfully processed. Refer to the above table.

Content display limitations

display Standard Plus Premium
public all files all files all files
private 3 files all files all files
password protected 3 files all files all files
personal 3 files all files all files

Note: On a Veto basic account, 100% of your uploads can be public and thus available to anyone who visits Veto. Private, password protected & personal content is limited on a basic account, to 3, 3, 3 individual uploads respectively. On a Veto plus/premium account, there are no limits on how you choose to display your content. Thus 100% of your uploads can be personal, private or a mixture between all 4 options.

File size limitations

media Standard Plus Premium
Image 8 megabytes 8 megabytes 8 megabytes
Video 3072 megabytes 3072 megabytes 3072 megabytes
Audio 512 megabytes 512 megabytes 512 megabytes

Note: Veto will encode contents to certain qualities. Video, audio and images will be resized to fit the structure of Veto. There is no reason at this moment to upload HQ content as the bitrate will be reduced. In the future hosting HQ content may be an option.

Content duration limitations

media Standard Plus Premium
Image N/A N/A N/A
Video 360 minutes 360 minutes 360 minutes
Audio 360 minutes 360 minutes 360 minutes

Note: Video and audio content will not be rejected if they exceed the maximum duration, but will be trimmed when processed.

Upload limitations

Aspect Standard Plus Premium
Size 15.0 gigabytes 30.0 gigabytes 100.0 gigabytes
Files 256 files 512 files 3,072 files

Note: Upload limit for files and total upload size per calendar month.

Account limitations

Aspect Standard Plus Premium
Size 45.0 gigabytes / No limit 125.0 gigabytes / No limit 500.0 gigabytes / No limit
Files 2,500 files / No limit 5,000 files / No limit 50,000 files / No limit

Note: Upload limit for files and total upload size for the accounts lifetime. Subject to the total amount of viewtime your channel generates. If your content generates over 10,000 minutes of viewtime in the last 12 months, these limits do not apply. Your account therefore would fall under the scope of no limit.

View upgrade plans.

Supported Formats

Veto currently supports 16 formats, to allow the upload of video, audio and image content. The file you upload must be one of the supported formats for it to be processed successfully. Learn more about what a file extension tells you.

Formats Veto will happily accept:

.png.jpeg.jpg.gif.avi.flv.mp4.mov.webm.mkv.wmv.mp3.aac.flac.wav.srt

Terms of service

The material on https://www.veto.social/ is not owned by Veto or any technology providers. The code that has been written to build Veto however does. You are welcome to view, download for caching purposes only and print pages, of the Web Site for personal use, however not for any commercial purposes or re-publication.

Veto reserves the right to modify or terminate the Veto service for any reason, without notice, at any time. Veto reserves the right to alter this TOS or other Site policies at any time, so please review the policies regularly.

Veto does not warrant that the functions contained in the material contained in this site will be uninterrupted or error free, or that this site or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or represent the full functionality, accuracy, reliability of the materials. In no event will I be liable for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damages whatsoever arising from use or loss of use of, data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of the website.

Terms Of Using Veto

By accessing or using the Site, uploading, downloading, viewing or using any subscription service, you agree to be bound by all of the terms and conditions in, and linked to, these Terms of Service (the “TOS” or the “Agreement”).

If you do not wish to be bound by this Agreement, then you may not access or use this Site or upload, view or download any content.

Web Site Information

I have tried to ensure that information provided on the Web Site is accurate. However, I make no representation and give no warranty of any kind in respect of the information. I do not accept liability for any loss (direct, indirect or consequential) which may arise from reliance on information contained in the Web Site or in respect of any error or omission.

Uploading content

You must be the author/creator of the content you upload, or have the appropriate permission from the author/creator to publish the content specifically on https://www.veto.social/. Veto is about giving people a more unrestricted platform but does still believe in the copyright laws that protects creators work and stops others from using it without their permission. Veto does it's best to check for duplicate content when a file is uploaded. If content is found to break these laws it will be removed.

Any content uploaded to the internet that is available publicly, can be downloaded/stolen. You should think carefully about what you are uploading anywhere on the internet.

Opinions

Registered users will be able to comment, like or dislike the content you upload. You are able to disable comments but not like / dislike ratings.

Automatic removal of content

Veto's algorithm will automatically remove some content, this includes:

• Duplicate content; If Veto detects you've uploaded the same file twice, it will automatically remove the least performing one (in terms of views). You'll get an email notifying you about the removal, and the option to recover this content if Veto has made a mistake.

• Undetailed content; If you upload content to Veto, but provide no details such as a title, description etc. Veto will still index this content temporarily, but if after 30 days this content has had little, to no engagement. Veto will remove this content. You'll be emailed 1 - 3 days after the initial upload prompting you to manage this request. If however you've not amended the upload after the 30 day period you'll not be emailed again. To stop automatic removal of content, provide a title and, or description when uploading content.

These measures are in place to reduce server storage usage.

Disallowed content

• Adverts
• Pornographic scenes

Veto does not accept content that contains pornographic scenes or breaks the law. Content such as adverts, that serve no other purpose than to drive traffic away from Veto will be removed. Veto is not intended to be a storage facility for your content, there is absolutely no guarantee that your content will remain on the system. It is your responsibility to keep a copy of your content saved on your own hardware.

Explicit content

If you are uploading content that contains fowl language, sexual references or violence you need to mark this as "explicit content" by checking the checkbox before you upload. Although Veto is reliant of the honesty of its users when registering their age, this will help Veto keep the content away from people who don't want to view or listen to this type of content. If you are found to upload what is considered explicit content without marking it as so, your account may be disabled.

By proceeding further and/or watching "explicit content" on any part of Veto, you affirm that you are at least 18 years of age, that you wish to view this material presented on Veto, and that the viewing or downloading of such material does not violate the legal standards of your country or community.

Privacy policy

When you attempt to upload content, engage with other users and content etc. You'll need an active Veto account, Veto requires only basic information from you to create an account.

All of Veto's pages are secured by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts your information.

Consent

Veto's content is user generated, sites of this nature cannot function without storing information. Your use of this website signifies your consent to the collection, processing and use of personal & non-personal information for the purpose of making Veto work as intended. I assume your consent to the use of cookies when you visit Veto, and your browser is set to accept them. You can alter the settings of your browser to prevent automatic acceptance of cookies, or delete cookies that have already been set. This will affect your user experience as you may not be able to utilise most or all of the sections and features on https://www.veto.social/.

If you do wish to restrict or block web browser cookies on your device, you can do this in your browser settings.

Creating an account

To create a valid Veto account you need to submit some personal information about yourself. Veto will send you a verification email when you create an account with a limited time token. In order to activate your account you will need to follow the instructions within this email.

Your information can be changed any time after your account is created in the personal information area of your account. An email change will require reconfirmation by following the instructions within the email Veto will send you. Your date of birth cannot be changed once your account is created.

Veto will determine your country by your public ip address when you create an account and display this on your public profile. If you'd prefer this not to be visible you can remove this information after you’ve created an account.

Veto Basic accounts are limited to one per person.

information required shared
Account Name
First Name
Last Name
Email Address
Date Of Birth
First line Of Address
City / Town
County
Country
Postcode
Telephone

Note: The only information that will be displayed publicly on Veto is your Account Name and Country (if you choose to leave this field populated). Your Account Name does not need to contain or refect anything personal about you.

Verification of account

When you create an account on Veto, you'll be sent a verification email with a limited time token. In order to activate your account you will need to follow the instructions within this email. You can always request a new verification email here.

Using a disposable email may restrict access to some of the features available on Veto.

Disabling account

You can disable your Veto account anytime from the personal information section of your account. By doing so all your uploads will no longer be accessible, however your public comments, ratings and profile will remain visible. You can reverse this action by logging into your account again.

Terminating account

You can terminate your Veto account anytime from the personal information section of your account. Out of respect for your privacy this request will delete all data associated with your account, your profile, and all your uploads will be inaccessible immediately. However some aspects of your activity may remain visible on Veto for a short period of time. Depending largely on the amount of content uploaded to the account, full removal of all data should be complete in a few hours but in some circumstances can take up to a couple of days.

Adding a profile display name

Adding a profile display name gives you the ability to display a longer and more customised username. When you add a display name it will dominate your username on main pages such as your profile and uploaded content.

Writing a profile description

This text box is designed to display an overview of your Veto profile, what content you upload etc. Veto will format your description, add links to external sites at the end of your text, inline separated by a space.

Example: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. https://www.veto.social https://www.example.com https://www.ffmpeg.org
Result:
About

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Links
veto.social - www.veto.social
example.com - www.example.com
ffmpeg.org - www.ffmpeg.org

Cookies

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded and stored on your personal computer, mobile or other device when you visit a website. This information is then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they can help website developers and companies to improve your website browsing experience.

What Does A Cookie Do?

Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improving your user experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

Some cookies are strictly necessary to enable you to move around the site or to provide certain basic features. Others are used to monitor and improve our website’s functionality and performance.

You can find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org.

Types Of Cookies

Persistent cookies - these cookies remain on a user's device for the period of time specified in the cookie. They are activated each time that the user visits the website that created that particular cookie.

Session cookies - these cookies allow website operators to link the actions of a user during a browser session. A browser session starts when a user opens the browser window and finishes when they close the browser window. Session cookies are created temporarily. Once you close the browser, all session cookies are deleted.

How You Can Control Cookies

I assume your consent to the use of cookies when you visit Veto and most browsers are automatically set to accept them. You can alter the settings of your browser to prevent automatic acceptance of cookies, or delete cookies that have already been set. This will affect your user experience as you may not be able to utilise most or all of the sections and features on the Site.

If you do wish to restrict or block web browser cookies on your device, you can do this in your browser settings.

Support Veto

Veto is a website I began building from scratch in late 2017, and ended up launching in beta around august 2018.

To give users peace of mind they are using a site that isn't reliant on information or input, nor required to share any information from or to other organisations, I committed myself to practically write all the code myself (excluding some open-source libraries listed below under "Dependencies").

My main intention with this website is to offer an alternative to mainstream social media platforms. A place where people can share and discover content, while also expressing their views and opinions without huge amounts of their personal information being harvested.

Veto's only costs are the use of cloud hardware providers. There are a few income streams I try to accumulate funds to cover these costs and keep Veto online, please see below.

Donate Directly

You can currently directly help and support Veto via PayPal or Patreon.

Veto Subcriptions

You can also support Veto by upgrading to a Plus or Premium account.

Help Veto grow by adding a share link to your own website.

Embed code

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Dependencies

Veto uses some software to make certain features on the website possible. I always use open-source libraries on Veto, so you are free to inspect the libraries used for yourself. All code/libraries not written by myself are listed below.

FFmpeg

All encoding is done using FFMPEG an open source library, released with MIT License.

YouTube-DL

Youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from various websites, released with MIT License.

Leaflet Maps

Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps.

JavaScript Foundation

Most of the front end is written in jQuery, another open source library that allows the creation of powerful dynamic web pages, released with MIT License.

Future plans

My main plans are to improve Veto's infrastructure and increase exposure to the site along with content creators who use it.

Disclaimer

All content, products, and services on the site, or obtained from a website to which the site is linked (a “linked site”) are provided to you “as is” without warranty of any kind either express or implied including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, security or accuracy.

Under no circumstance will Veto be liable for any loss or damage caused by a user’s reliance on information obtained through the site or a linked site, or user’s reliance on any product or service obtained from a linked site. It is the responsibility of the user to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any opinion, advice or other content available through the site, or obtained from a linked site. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific opinion, advice, product, service, or other content.