Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a court order requiring the messaging platform Discord to extend the same child-safety protections it offers users in the United Kingdom to users in Texas.
According to a July 24 news release from the attorney general’s office, an agreed temporary injunction gives Discord 90 days to turn on age-assurance and default safety settings for every Texas user. Paxton’s office said the order sets a new standard for technology companies doing business in the state.
The release said that under the platform’s current settings, a user in Texas can create an account with only an email address and a self-reported birthday, and that by default anyone can send a child a friend request or private message. It cited testimony that the company submitted 489,782 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025.
The office said Discord had already built the safety measures for users in Britain but had not extended them to Texas. Under the order, the company must route messages from strangers into a separate request inbox, block sensitive content for Texas teens, restrict adult-only spaces to age-verified users, and report its progress every 30 days. “Discord built safety measures to protect these kids,” Paxton said. “My office forced Discord to turn those protections on for every Texas child.”
The attorney general’s office, which filed the lawsuit May 22, said the injunction is enforceable by contempt and binds the company until final judgment. The case is set to proceed to trial, where the state will seek civil penalties under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.