Belgrade · International schools · Est. 2026
Recess (veliki odmor) is a verified, anonymous forum for students of Belgrade's international schools. Real students, invented names. Find people who do what you do, plan things worth leaving the house for, and talk across school walls. A human moderator reads every post before it goes up.
How it works
The old anonymous internet had one bug: nothing stopped the worst person in the room. We fixed the bug and kept the mask.
You register with your school and your school email. One account per person, bound to your device — if an account is banned, that device doesn't get a second one. Your identity is stored sealed and never shown to other users.
The system deals you an anonymous handle — that's who you are here. No real names, no face photos, no follower counts. Your posts build your handle's reputation, nothing else.
Nothing publishes automatically. Student moderators read each post against the house rules before it appears. Slower than a normal feed. That's deliberate.
Branches
Each international school gets its own branch. The Yard is where all of them meet. And anyone can open a new branch for whatever the schools have in common — a sport, a subject, an obsession.
The fine print, honestly
People are off-limits as content. No posts about named or identifiable students — no photos of others, no "spotted", no exposing. Serbian law makes this illegal; our rules make it impossible to publish.
Pre-moderation where it counts. Posts, events, and branches appear only after a moderator approves them. Comments flow freely — and mods delete violations and suspend the accounts behind them.
Anonymity with a keyhole. Users never see who you are — but your real name sits sealed in the vault. Threaten violence and a moderator can unseal exactly one identity for the police. The unseal is logged and you are told it happened. Everyone else stays invisible, always.
Bans stick. Account and device are banned together. There is no fresh account from the same phone.
From the founders
"We go to these schools. We were tired of twelve student bodies pretending the others don't exist. We'll sign our names when the thing works — until then, judge the yard, not the builders."
— THE FOUNDERS · handles sealed like everyone else's
House rules · v1.0 · August 2026
House language is English — every post and branch works in English first; school branches may run their school's language alongside. Short version: talk about anything — ideas, plans, schools, the city, yourselves. Never about an identifiable person who didn't put themselves in the conversation. Every post is read by a human moderator before it publishes.
Looking for a study group, a bandmate, a doubles partner, a co-founder, someone who also does olympiad chemistry. This is what the yard is for.
Tournaments, MUN conferences, gigs, pickup games, movie nights, charity drives. Post it, pin it on the events map, make it happen. You may only pin locations of public events — never a person.
Compare IB vs A-levels, canteen food, uniforms, which school's football team is overrated. Institutions and teams are fair game for opinion; the individuals inside them are not.
Textbook exchange, past-paper strategy, university applications, "is anyone else's physics teacher assigning 40 problems a week" (no names). Ask anything; answer generously.
You can share your own photos, your own results, your own life — that's your consent to give. You just can't spend anyone else's.
No gossip, rumors, "spotted" sightings, relationship reveals, or exposes about a named, pictured, or recognizable person. "Recognizable" includes initials, nicknames, and descriptions everyone at a school can decode.
Publishing personal data or details from someone's private life without consent is unlawful in Serbia regardless of whether it's true.
Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (Sl. glasnik RS 87/2018) · Krivični zakonik čl. 145 — unauthorized publication of another's writing, portrait or recording · Zakon o javnom informisanju i medijima (92/2023) — dignity & presumption of innocenceNo uploading images, video, or audio of another person without their documented consent — including group photos where individuals are identifiable, and anything recorded on school grounds.
Krivični zakonik čl. 144 — unauthorized photographing · čl. 145 — unauthorized publication (up to 2 years' imprisonment when privacy is invaded)No posting where a person is, was, or will be. Real-time location of an individual is the single fastest way to get someone hurt, and the single fastest way to get this site shut down. Event pins are for events; a person is not an event.
Krivični zakonik čl. 138a — stalking (proganjanje) · čl. 138 — endangering safetyNo insults directed at individuals, no threats (even "jokes"), no coordinating dogpiles, no encouraging anyone toward self-harm. Zero tolerance, first offense, permanent ban, and where the law requires it we report it.
Krivični zakonik čl. 138 — endangering safety · čl. 170 — insult · defamation carries civil liability under Zakon o obligacionim odnosimaMuch of this community is under 18, so there is no "adults-only corner": no pornography, no sexualized content, no requesting or sharing intimate images. Intimate content involving a minor is a serious crime we are obligated to report immediately, including "consensual" sharing between students.
Krivični zakonik čl. 185 — exploitation of a minor for pornography · Zakon o posebnim merama za sprečavanje vršenja krivičnih dela protiv polne slobode prema maloletnim licima ("Marijin zakon")No attacks on national, ethnic, religious, or any other group identity. Twelve schools means every background in one yard — that only works one way.
Ustav RS čl. 49 · Krivični zakonik čl. 317 — incitement of national, racial or religious hatred · Zakon o zabrani diskriminacije (22/2009, 52/2021)No selling, sourcing, or promoting drugs, alcohol to minors, weapons, or stolen goods. No posting leaked exams or selling academic fraud — that one gets you expelled before it gets you banned.
Krivični zakonik čl. 246 — unauthorized production and circulation of narcoticsNo pretending to be another person, a school, or a moderator. No second accounts, no returning after a ban from another device. Discovered evasion re-bans permanently and retroactively removes everything you posted.
Every post, event, and new branch enters a queue and publishes only after a human moderator approves it. Comments publish instantly — reviewing each one would drown the desk — but moderators sweep them continuously and can delete any comment on sight. Approved posts can also be taken down at any time if they turn out to break the rules. Rule-breaking comments escalate: deletion, then suspension (3, 7, or 30 days), then a permanent device-wide ban. Every suspension can be appealed once — the appeal goes to the mod desk and is reviewed like any other decision, and moderators can lift a suspension at any time. Rejections and deletions always cite the rule.
Registration requires your legal name and surname, your school, and your school email, and binds one account to one device. Other users only ever see your handle — but the vault means anonymity never equals impunity: post a threat of violence against a person or a school, and a moderator unseals exactly one identity, the unseal is written to an audit log, the member whose record was opened is notified automatically, and the case goes to the school and the police. Outside of that, sealed data is disclosed exclusively when Serbian authorities lawfully require it.
Data handled under Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (87/2018), GDPR-aligned · minimum data, no sale, no ad profilesEvery post carries a report button. Reports about safety — threats, self-harm, anything involving a minor — jump the queue and reach a moderator within hours, not days. Serious cases go to the national platform čuvamte.gov.rs and, where required, the police.
You can't post before confirming — by explicit action, once, at registration — that you've read these rules and accept them, including that moderators decide what publishes and that bans are final. That confirmation is logged with a timestamp.
Recess is for members aged 15 and up. In Serbia 15 is the age at which you can consent to your own data being processed; below it we would need verified parental consent, which we do not collect, so we do not open accounts for under-15s at all. At registration you declare 15–17 or 18+. An 18+ branch is invisible territory for members under 18. Your age group is never shown to other users. Misstating your age is treated as impersonation: permanent ban.
Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (87/2018) čl. 16 — age of consent for information society services · GDPR Art. 8English is the working language of every shared space — it's the one language all twelve schools have in common, and moderators must be able to read what they approve. School branches may run their school's language alongside English. Posts in other languages elsewhere are returned, not punished.
Privacy notice · draft v0.9 · August 2026
Recess is anonymous to other students, not anonymous to the law. This page says exactly what we hold, why we hold it, who can see it, and how you get rid of it. If anything here contradicts what you were told elsewhere on the site, this page is the one we are bound by.
Recess is operated from Belgrade, Serbia. The registered operator name, address, and contact email for privacy questions go here once the entity is settled. Until that line exists, this notice is incomplete and Recess should not be taking registrations from the public.
Zakon o zaštiti podataka o ličnosti (87/2018) čl. 23 · GDPR Art. 13(1)(a)Given once at registration. Your first name and surname, the school you picked from the list, the school email address we sent a code to, and whether you are 15–17 or 18 or over.
These four things are stored in our database in readable form. "Sealed" on this site means access is restricted and every look is logged and reported to you, not that the fields are encrypted so nobody can read them. Anyone with administrative access to the database can read your name. We would rather tell you that than let you assume otherwise.
Lawful basis: performance of the contract you enter by opening an account, and our legitimate interest in a community where nobody is anonymous to the moderatorsYour password is never stored. We keep a PBKDF2 hash of it with a per-account salt, which cannot be turned back into your password. Your handle is public. The device fingerprint is a short hash built from your browser's user agent, screen size and language; we use it to enforce one account per device and to make bans stick. It does not identify you across other websites.
Lawful basis: contract, and legitimate interest in preventing ban evasion and duplicate accountsEverything you write, plus any file you attach, plus which way you voted. Moderators read all of it before it publishes. If you sign up to an event that uses named sign-ups, the organiser (another student) sees the first name, surname, school and Instagram handle you type into that form. Nobody else does, and we tell you before you type it.
Lawful basis: contract for publication; your consent for the optional Instagram handleRegistrations, age changes, handle changes, suspensions, appeals and every unsealing of an identity are written to an audit log with a timestamp and the moderator responsible. This log is how we can prove we did or did not do something. You cannot delete entries from it.
Lawful basis: legal obligation and legitimate interest in accountable moderationRecess knows that some of its members are under 18, so profiling-based advertising is off the table for everyone, not just for minors. If Recess ever carries advertising it will be contextual, sold against a branch or a topic, never against a person. We do not sell or share personal data with advertisers or data brokers.
Digital Services Act Art. 28(2) — no ads based on profiling where the platform is aware a user is a minorRecess sets one thing in your browser: a login token, so you stay signed in, and your light or dark preference. There is no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no advertising cookie, and therefore no cookie banner asking you to accept things you did not want.
Supabase hosts the database and the server code, in Frankfurt, Germany. Cloudflare serves the site and sees your IP address in order to do that. Resend sends the verification and notification emails, so it processes your email address. OpenStreetMap serves the map tiles on the Events page, which means opening that page reveals your IP address to them.
Data is stored inside the European Union. Serbia sits outside the EU, so moving data between the two is a cross-border transfer and the lawyer needs to confirm the paperwork for it.
GDPR Art. 28 processors · Art. 44–49 transfers · ZZPL čl. 65Delete your account and your name, email, school and age group go with it. What stays: the audit log, because it records moderation decisions we may have to account for, and the device fingerprint of a banned account, because a ban that evaporates is not a ban. Both are kept without your name attached where that is possible.
Posts you made stay up unless you delete them first, because threads other people replied to fall apart otherwise. Delete them before you delete the account if you want them gone.
You can ask for a copy of everything we hold on you, correct anything wrong, delete your account, object to how we use your data, and take a complaint to the regulator without going through us first. Write to the privacy address above and we answer within 30 days.
In Serbia the regulator is the Poverenik za informacije od javnog značaja i zaštitu podataka o ličnosti, Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 15, Belgrade.
ZZPL čl. 26, 29, 30, 31, 37, 82 · GDPR Art. 15–21, 77In Serbia 15 is the age at which you can agree to your own data being processed for an online service. Below that, a parent or guardian has to agree for you, and that consent has to be verified rather than assumed. Recess does not collect parental consent, so it does not accept members under 15 at all. If we find out an account belongs to someone younger, we close it and delete the data.
ZZPL čl. 16 · GDPR Art. 8Registration
Your real name and school email go into a sealed vault — no other user ever sees them, but they exist. Anonymity here protects you from your peers, not from consequences.
Sealed at registration. Opened only for threats of violence or when the law requires it. Every unseal is logged and you get a notification telling you it happened.
We email a 6-digit code to verify it's yours. The address is stored sealed, used for nothing else.
Decides which branches you can enter — some are 18+ only. Checked against school records when challenged; lying about age is a bannable offense. Never shown to other users; moderators can see it.
Recess runs in English — the one language all twelve schools share. School branches may use their school's language alongside it.
Fill in your name, surname, school, age group, and a school email that contains "@" to continue.
Wrong email or password.
Logged in.
Signed in as — ·
Shown next to your handle in the forum, DMs and friend lists. Rule 07 applies here too — photos of other people without consent get removed and sanctioned.
Your handle is how everyone knows you. Once a week, letters, numbers and dashes only. Old comments keep the new name.
Your login email — currently —. We send a code to the new address to prove it's yours; your password confirms it's you.
Once every 30 days. Mods can see your age group; lying about age is a bannable offense.
Signs this device out. Your account and handle stay.
Open invitation
Recess started with twelve of Belgrade's international schools — but the yard has room. We welcome new schools into the community. A school that joins gets its own branch, its students register with their school email, and everyone gets the same sealed-identity protection and the same four rules.
Ask for your school below — no account needed. A human moderator reads every request; if it fits, we add the school to the join list, open its branch, and reply to your email with the details.
We only use this email to reply about the request. It is not an account and nothing is published.
Find people by their nickname. Friends can DM each other directly — everyone else lands in message requests first.
Private between the two of you — moderators cannot read DMs. If someone crosses a line, report that message: only the reported message reaches the mod desk, nothing else.
Where all twelve schools meet at once. Cross-school everything: find people, plan things, argue about whose canteen is worst.
Events map
Organizers pin their own public events — tournaments, conferences, gigs, meetups. Tap a pin to see the event. Pins mark venues and only venues: the map never shows where a person is.
live map · organizers pin events themselves · pins mark venues, never people
Anyone can propose one. It publishes after the mod desk confirms it — venue included. Public venues only.
Named sign-ups mean you know who you're meeting. Open fits big public events.
Title, date, venue, and a map pin are required.
Submitted — your event is in the moderation queue. It appears on the map once a moderator confirms it.
Mod desk · moderators only
The queue below is what pre-moderation looks like from the inside. Approve sends a post to its branch; reject returns it to the author with the rule it broke. Every decision is logged.
queue clear — the yard is quiet ✓
Approved something that turned bad — or a post aged into a problem? Take it down here. Deleting removes the post and its comments from the branch; the author is notified with the rule. Suspend the account when it's a pattern.
Comments publish instantly — reviewing each one would bury the desk. Instead they land here as they appear: delete what breaks the rules, and suspend accounts that keep doing it. Deletions and suspensions are logged like everything else.
Every handle maps to a real name, school, and verified email in the vault. Names stay masked even for you — unsealing one requires a second moderator, is written to the audit log, and is reserved for threats and lawful demands.
Approved a branch too fast? Close it here. Closing removes it from every rail, locks its threads, and notifies its members with the reason. The action is logged and reversible by a second moderator.