Good conversations need a few ground rules.

Community rules

• Adults only. You must be 18 or older. If you believe someone is under 18, end the chat and report them as “Seems to be under 18”.
• No harassment or hate. No bullying, threats, slurs or attacks on anyone's identity.
• No sexual content involving minors — ever. We report child sexual abuse material to the relevant authorities.
• No unwanted sexual content. Don't send sexual messages to people who haven't clearly agreed to that conversation.
• No spam, scams or advertising. No selling, recruiting, phishing or asking for money.
• No doxxing. Never share someone else's personal information.
• Nothing illegal. Don't use TextStrangers to plan, promote or carry out anything illegal.

Protect yourself

• Keep your full name, address, school or workplace, phone number and social accounts to yourself.
• Be wary of anyone who pushes you to move to another app, asks for photos, or asks for money or gift cards.
• You never owe a stranger a reply. Leaving is always fine.
• If someone threatens you or anyone else, report the chat and contact local emergency services if anyone is in immediate danger.

How moderation actually works

Nobody reads your conversations live. TextStrangers does not have real-time human moderation of private chats. Instead we combine automated checks with reports from people like you:

• Automated message checks. Every message is checked on our server before delivery. Messages containing slurs and hate terms, sexual content involving minors, or links are blocked. This is a keyword-based filter — it catches a lot, but not everything.
• Spam limits. Sending too many messages too quickly, or the same message over and over, is blocked automatically.
• Under-18 signals. If a message suggests the sender is under 18, the conversation is flagged for a moderator to review.
• Reports. When you report a chat, it ends immediately and the report — with the most recent messages from that conversation — goes to our moderation queue. If three different people report the same person within 24 hours, that person is automatically suspended for 24 hours while a moderator reviews it.
• Private feedback. The optional thumbs up/down after a chat is never shown to anyone. A pattern of negative feedback only flags an account for a moderator to look at — it never bans anyone by itself.
• Enforcement. Moderators can dismiss reports, suspend people temporarily, or ban them. Serious bans can also apply to the network the person connected from.

Age checks

Before your first chat, you'll be asked for your date of birth. We don't store the date — only whether you're 18 or older. If you enter an age under 18, this browser is locked out of chatting. This is a self-declaration, not identity verification, which is why reports of possible minors are always prioritised.

Public rooms

Messages in public rooms are visible to everyone in that room and stay in the room feed for up to 24 hours. Treat anything you post there as public. The same rules, filters and reporting apply.

Reporting outside the chat

The fastest way to report someone is the Report option in the chat menu, or on the screen right after a chat ends (available for 15 minutes). For anything else, visit our support page.

If you need to talk to someone

If you're struggling, you don't have to go through it alone. Free, confidential helplines are listed by country at findahelpline.com.