--- title: "Communities can now be 13+, 16+ or 18+ - Blog - mssgs" description: "A community on mssgs can now be 13+, 16+ or 18+. Only people whose age range meets the limit can join: no ID, no face scan and no birthday." canonical: https://blog.mss.gs/en/age-limits-for-communities language: en --- # Communities can now be 13+, 16+ or 18+ A community can now say who it is for. Pick an age limit in its settings, and only people whose age range meets it can join: no ID, no face scan, no birthday. Not every community is for everyone. The crew for a game rated 18, a student society, the senior team of a sports club, a group of friends heading to a festival: they want to know that whoever joins belongs there. Starting today, a community on mssgs can say who it is for. Set it to 13+, 16+ or 18+, and only people whose age range meets that limit can join. Nobody uploads an ID or scans their face to get in, and mssgs never learns anyone’s birthday. ## Pick who your community is for Open your community’s **Server Settings → User Policy** and choose under **Age**: **Everyone**, **13+**, **16+** or **18+**. That is all it takes. The limit is saved straight away and holds for every way in: search, invite links and invite codes. - **Everyone is the default.** Every community stays open to everyone until the people who run it choose a limit. - **Members stay.** A limit decides who may join from now on. Nobody who is already in is removed. - **You set a limit you meet.** You can only choose a limit you meet yourself, so a 15-year-old cannot set up an 18+ community. - **Clear before you join.** Search results, invite cards and the join screen show the limit as a small label, such as 18+, and tell you up front when your age range is below it. ## Who can join mssgs knows people by one of four age ranges: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, and 18 or older. A limit lets in every range at or above it. | Your age range | 13+ | 16+ | 18+ | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Under 13 | Cannot join | Cannot join | Cannot join | | 13 to 15 | Can join | Cannot join | Cannot join | | 16 to 17 | Can join | Can join | Cannot join | | 18 or older | Can join | Can join | Can join | The owner of a community and its bots are never held to its limit: the owner is already in, and a bot has no age. Between 13 and 15, our terms also ask for a parent linked through the Parent Center before joining most communities. ## An age range, never a birthday When someone who has never given their age tries to join a community with a limit, mssgs asks once how old they are. Four choices, the same four ranges, and that range is all we keep. There is no date of birth anywhere in mssgs, and nothing to upload. - **On iPhone, Apple’s age range comes first.** Where iOS can share an age range, mssgs asks Apple for it instead of asking you, and you can decline. On other iPhones, on desktop and on the web, you pick your range yourself. - **No talking your way past it.** A range you pick never replaces the range Apple shared or one set by our team. A teen whose iPhone shared their age cannot answer “18 or older” on another device to get into an 18+ community. - **Never asked means no pass.** An account that never gave its age passes no limit at all, not even 13+. “We never asked” never counts as “adult”. - **Turned away, invite kept.** When your age range is below the limit, mssgs tells you who the community is for, and a single-use invite you tried stays unused for someone who can join. ## Checked on our servers, every time The limit is checked on our servers each time someone joins, not only in the app. So it holds however people find you: a link in a chat, a code on a poster or a search. A community with a limit also keeps its channels off the open web. Its public channels on community.mss.gs cannot be read while a limit is set, because a visitor who is not signed in has no age range. Clear the limit and they are back. ## Which limit fits - **13+** makes sure everyone who joins has confirmed they are at least 13: a youth club, a school year, a gaming group for younger players. - **16+** is for older teens and adults: a festival crew, a team that plays a game rated 16, a study group for the last years of school. - **18+** is adults only: a game rated 18, a student society, the senior team, the after-work drinks group. An age limit is about who a community is for. The [rules of mssgs](https://mss.gs/en/company/eula) apply in every community, with or without one. ## Safety without a scan This is how we think age should work on a chat app: protection built into how it works, not a pile of IDs and selfies sitting with a vendor. A community can now be just for adults, or just for 16 and up, and nobody had to hand over a document or their face to make that so. Read how this compares with [age checks elsewhere](https://blog.mss.gs/en/age-verification-mssgs-vs-discord), and how the [Parent Center](https://mss.gs/en/help/account/parent-center) keeps parents in the loop without showing them a single message. Age limits come with the new version of mssgs for iPhone, desktop and the web. Update your app, then open **Server Settings → User Policy**. **Have a group that is for adults only, or for 16 and up?** [Start your community on mssgs](https://mss.gs/en/start) and give it the age limit that fits. [All posts](https://blog.mss.gs/en)