Discord announced on Monday that it would change accounts to default to the Teen age categorywhich asks some who use the popular communication service to verify their age if they want to access servers restricted to adults, avoid blocking age-rated content or host livestreaming events on the platform’s Stage.

This is a big step for Discord, which has more than 200 million monthly active users. Discord will start rolling out the changes in early March. The Teen age setting will not only affect access to certain servers but will also route direct message requests to a new inbox, add warnings to friend alerts and blur content filtered as sensitive.

A Discord representative said the company believes most mature users don’t need to manually verify their age, as the company’s age-inference model uses information such as account tenure, device and activity data to eliminate manual verification. The representative said that 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. Last year, the YouTube, Roblox, ChatGPT etc. have additional technology to verify or estimate a person’s age to protect young users from adult content or unwanted contact. Online platforms have come under fire for their effects on children, along with some countries banning young people from social media platforms completely.

In the case of Discord, the company says it will offer more than one option for age verification: either submit the ID to a verification partner or use a facial age estimation tool. For some, that shouldn’t be obvious.

“Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine if 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 designate an age group.”

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

Discord now requires people to verify their age to access age-restricted servers. Last year, a third-party vendor was hacked in an incident which exposed IDs for 70,000 age-verified.

Who is next for age verification?

While Discord is the latest tech platform to take definitive action in addressing how it handles users under the age of 18, it may not be the last. Fewer than a dozen states have laws on the books which requires social media companies to verify the age of minorsbut that number could increase with more state governments considering similar legislation.

The pressure to verify doesn’t just come from local and federal regulations; it is also through responding to cases related to harm done to children through online platforms and through tools such as chatbots.

You can expect age verification to spread, and for the companies that own these platforms to try to weigh how they implement users’ age guesses or verify them, as Discord does.

“The “teens by default” approach to Discord is an interesting one,” said Rivka Gewirtz Little, chief growth officer at Socure, which helps companies deal with online identity verification and fraud prevention. “Actually if you can’t prove you’re an adult, be prepared to be protected as a child.”

Companies, Little said, must navigate how to protect children without blocking access to adults unnecessarily, which may become more difficult if more laws are passed on the issue. Little said that this “shows how important it is for solutions to be able to easily meet a wide range of state-level and international restrictions, which have different requirements on how to evaluate the technical age.”