Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Discord, a popular and free communications platform, for allegedly allowing child predators to groom and exploit kids while deceiving parents and the public about the safety of its platform.
In October 2025, Paxton opened an investigation into Discord after Charlie Kirk’s death, as well as reports that the platform is addictive and has exposed minors to sexual exploitation and extremist content.
“Discord has allowed and invited all kinds of nihilistic violence and evil,” said Paxton. “My office is taking action to protect our nation’s precious children from predators. 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.”
According to the Office of the Attorney General, Discord lied by claiming that safety was “at the core of everything we do” and “fully integrated into our design process” while making deliberate product decisions that defaulted every account setting toward maximum exposure, staffed its most critical safety functions with unpaid volunteers, and built a platform architecture that federal prosecutors have described as “a hunting ground to find, manipulate, and extort our most vulnerable.”
Consequences of Discord’s design choices include a case in which a 13-year-old Texas girl was sexually assaulted in her home by a predator who groomed her on Discord over several years.
Additionally, a 15-year-old boy was coerced into producing explicit material through Discord’s messaging system and later died by suicide.
Despite direct notice from multiple federal agencies and the OAG, Discord has not changed the design choices that make exploitation possible.
Paxton is seeking to require Discord to default all safety settings to maximum protection for new accounts, implement age verification pursuant to the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, and pay back all revenue derived from its unlawful conduct.
The state is also seeking civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation of the DTPA, attorney’s fees, and costs.
