Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Discord on Friday. The lawsuit alleges the platform enabled child predators, deceived parents, and violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
But the remedy Texas is asking the court to impose goes far beyond fixing Discord’s broken safety systems. Paxton wants a judge to order mandatory age verification for every user on the platform under the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, Texas’ SCOPE law.
That means before you can type a message, join a server, or talk to anyone on Discord, you would need to prove your identity to the state’s satisfaction. Government ID uploads. Biometric face scans. Third-party verification services that cross-reference your private records.
The SCOPE Act doesn’t specify which method, just that the platform must use a “commercially reasonable” one. All of that requires surrendering personal data that goes well beyond confirming you’re over 18.
This is the pattern now. Age verification laws are the vehicle through which governments are dismantling anonymous access to the internet and they’re doing it one platform at a time, one state at a time, always framed as protecting children.
More than 25 US states now require age checks to access some form of online content. The Supreme Court upheld Texas’s age verification law for adult websites last year.
The EU is rolling out its Digital Identity Wallet by the end of 2026. Australia banned under-16s from social media entirely. Discord is just the latest target.
“Discord has allowed and invited all kinds of nihilistic violence and evil,” Paxton said. “We live in a time where the dangers children face online have never been greater, and every parent in Texas deserves to know their child is protected.”
Paxton filed the lawsuit in Collin County state district court, part of a burst of tech company litigation from his office ahead of his US Senate GOP runoff against John Cornyn, which he won yesterday.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
Earlier this year and last, his office has gone after Snapchat, TikTok, and Roblox on similar grounds. Texas joins Nevada, Indiana, and New Jersey in suing Discord specifically, with Florida investigating separately.
Hellbound and Down 