Discord announced on Monday that it will change accounts to default to a Teen age category, requiring some who use the popular communication service to verify their age if they want to access adult-restricted servers, avoid having age-flagged content blocked or host Stage livestreaming events on the platform.

It’s a big move for Discord, which has more than 200 million monthly active users. Discord will begin rolling out the changes in early March. The Teen age setting will not only affect access to some servers but will also route direct message requests to a new inbox, add warnings to friend alerts and blur content that has been filtered as sensitive.

A Discord representative said the company believes most adult users won’t have to manually verify their age, noting that the company’s age-inference model uses information such as account tenure, device and activity data to eliminate the manual verification. The representative said Discord does not use private messages or any message content in this process.

Discord is just the latest company to add age verification to its platform. Over the last year, YouTube, Roblox, ChatGPT and others have added technology to verify or estimate a person’s age to protect younger users from adult content or unwanted contact. Online platforms have come under fire for their effects on children, with some countries banning young people from social media platforms entirely. 

In the case of Discord, the company said it will offer more than one option for age verification: either submitting ID to a verification partner or using a facial age-estimation tool. For some, that may not be explicitly required. 

«Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age,» the company said. «Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.» 

In addition to the service changes, Discord said it’s launching a Teen Council, which will consist of about a dozen teenagers who will help advise the company on «what teens need, how they build meaningful connections, and what makes them feel safe and supported online.» Teens aged 13 to 17 can apply for the Teen Council until May 1. 

Discord had already been asking people to verify their age to access age-restricted servers. Last year, a third-party vendor was hacked in an incident that exposed IDs for 70,000 who’d been age-verified. 

Who’s next for age verification?

While Discord is the latest tech platform to take definitive action on addressing how it handles having users under the age of 18, it’s unlikely to be the last. Fewer than a dozen states have laws on the books requiring social media companies to age-verify minors, but that number could increase with many state governments considering similar legislation.

The pressure to verify doesn’t just come from local and federal rules; it’s also in response to lawsuits related to harm done to children via online platforms and through tools such as chatbots.

You can expect age verification to spread, and for companies that own these platforms to try to weigh how they’re going to implement guessing the ages of users or verifying them, as Discord is doing.

«Discord’s «teenager by default» approach is an interesting one,» said Rivka Gewirtz Little, chief growth officer at Socure, which helps companies deal with online identity verification and fraud prevention. «Essentially if you can’t prove you’re adult, be prepared to be safeguarded as a child.»

Companies, Little said, will have to navigate how to safeguard children without blocking off access to adults unnecessarily, could could get tougher are more laws are passed around the issue. Little said it «reflects how important it is for solutions to be nimble enough to address a wide range of state-level and international restrictions, which vary in requirements for how to technically assess age.»

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Hope you know your 50 Cent songs! Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Gift wrapping flourish
Answer: BOW

4A clue: The «M» of D.M.V.
Answer: MOTOR

6A clue: What airlines often charge for selecting your seat
Answer: EXTRA

7A clue: Requiring constant emotional validation
Answer: NEEDY

8A clue: Workers doing rounds: Abbr.
Answer: DRS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Like some wine and Christmas presents
Answer: BOXED

2D clue: Missing animal in «Zootopia»
Answer: OTTER

3D clue: Crossplay plays
Answer: WORDS

4D clue: «Many ___» (50 Cent hit)
Answer: MEN

5D clue: Bit of sunshine
Answer: RAY

After weeks of teasing, OpenAI has begun testing advertisements inside ChatGPT in the US, marking a major evolution in the product’s business model and user experience. The rollout affects those with Free tier plans and the new lower-cost ChatGPT Go plan. People on paid tiers such as Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise will remain free of ads. 

The company says this early ad experiment is part of its effort to support broader access to powerful AI features while helping fund the infrastructure and development that keep ChatGPT running at scale. 

The company says that ads will be clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the chatbot’s answers.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Read also: ChatGPT Free vs. ChatGPT Plus: Paying $20 Per Month Is Worth It

Controlled advertising and privacy

According to OpenAI, the ads will not influence the chatbot’s responses or compromise privacy. Conversations and personal chat data will not be shared with advertisers. You will also have control over your ad experience, including toggles for personalization or the option to opt out entirely in exchange for fewer free messages. 

As part of the rollout, each ad is matched to the topic that a user is already discussing, though safeguards are in place to prevent ads from appearing in sensitive contexts, such as health or political discussions. 

The company emphasizes that this initial phase is a test-and-learn opportunity. Feedback from early users will help shape how ads are refined and potentially expanded in the future. OpenAI says it will use insights from this pilot to better balance monetization with user experience.

The broader implications

The introduction of ads in ChatGPT comes amid growing competitive pressure in the AI industry and heightened expectations around sustainable revenue models for large AI platforms. While the move has drawn mixed reactions from users and industry observers, OpenAI maintains that the ads are meant to subsidize free and low-cost access.

As the testing continues, OpenAI’s approach will likely influence how other AI companies think about monetization and the role of advertising in conversational AI tools, though some platforms — like Anthropic — have «promised» to never incorporate ads. Anthropic even ran a series of Super Bowl commercials, making fun of the idea of ads showing up in AI discussions. In one of them, for instance, a young man asks AI for help getting six-pack abs, and the AI, in the form of a personal trainer, starts helping him, then begins hawking fictional insoles that will make him taller.

Read also: Meta’s All In on AI Creating the Ads You See on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp