Paxton, NetChoice both declare victory in court decisions on Texas SCOPE Act

In the great, dusty arena that is Texas biometrics law, two fighters stand across the scrubland facing one another, both raising their hands in victory.

On one side is Texas Attorney General Ken Pax­ton – known in these parts for his role in the Supreme Court decision on age assurance requirements for pornography websites. Paxton brandishes a release, which celebrates victory in the form of “a landmark Agreed Temporary Injunction against Discord that requires the tech company to give Texas children the same age assurance and default safety protections it already provides to its users in the United Kingdom,” following the platform’s failure to prevent minors from being exposed to sexual exploitation and extremist content as dictated by House Bill 18 – the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act.

On the other side is NetChoice – not so much a lone renegade as a bunch of Big Tech companies huddled together and dressed in a trenchcoat and Stetson hat. NetChoice has also brought a release to the showdown: this one glorifies a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming the injunction blocking a central requirement of HB 18, as “another NetChoice victory for free speech and families.”

Hot wind blows tumbleweeds across the hard earth. The trilling whistle of a Spaghetti Western score echoes in the distance. Who has actually won? Is this even the right battle? Perhaps only the rattlesnakes know.

Paxton to Discord 90: you’ve got 90 days, punk

Under Paxton’s favored injunction, Discord has 90 days to turn on age assurance and default safety protections for every Texas user. The Attorney General’s statement takes Discord to task for misrepresenting its safety efforts: “Currently, anyone in Texas, including children and adult predators seeking to do harm, can open a Discord account with nothing more than an email address and a self-reported birthday. This is a faulty honor system that anyone can clear within seconds.”

“Additionally, there are no restrictions around who can send a child a private message. When Texas’s investigator created an account as a 13-year-old girl, a stranger messaged her within moments, and within thirty seconds he solicited her for explicit sexual acts.”

Furthermore, “in 2025 alone, Discord submitted 489,782 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation on its platform to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That is more than 1,300 a day, every day, from a single platform.”

Discord is facing increasing pressure for its role in the grooming and online sexual exploitation supply chain, with one state lawmaker calling it part of a “two-stage predatory pipeline” with Roblox. Paxton is talking tough, saying the injunction order “sets a new standard for what Big Tech companies can expect when they do business in this state.” At the same time, there is some exasperation in his pose when he notes that “the order does not ask Texas users to hand over anything new. It adopts the age assurance system Discord designed, built, and already runs in Britain.”

“Discord had already solved these problems in Britain, where the law gave it a deadline. Texas got an empty promise instead,” the AG says. “Discord built a platform where adult predators could hunt Texas children, then looked parents in the eye and told them it was safe,” said Attorney General Paxton. “It wasn’t. That ends now.”

(Or, more precisely, 90 days from now.)

With that, Paxton rolls up the release like a cigar, snaps open a Zippo, and touches flame to paper – a signal, perhaps, that his work is not done, and that anyone who bucks child online safety rules in his town will get burned.

NetChoice to Texas: you’re more free now, though we’re not sure why

Across the corral, NetChoice chuckles in Paxton’s direction. It considers a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to be in its favor: the SCOPE Act remains blocked as it relates to a monitoring and filtering requirement meant to root out material that promotes topics like self-harm or substance abuse, per a report from Bloomberg Law.

Seems “the challenged filtering requirement is preempted by a federal law – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – that gives digital service providers broad immunity from information publicized by third parties.” The three-judge panel says the requirement was overbroad in issuing the injunction. So the win goes to NetChoice and its partner in litigation, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA).

From within the trenchcoat pops the head of Paul Taske, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center. “This is a win for every Texan who believes the government has no business deciding what they can read, watch, and say online,” he says. “HB 18 would have forced websites to censor broad, vaguely defined categories of lawful speech. The Fifth Circuit is right to keep it blocked. Parents, not the government, are best positioned to decide what is appropriate for their own families, and today’s ruling protects that fundamental right.”

But the sun is going down in Texas, and opposite the gloating head of Taske, Ken Paxton smiles under his Stetson. Clearing his throat, he announces that “the law’s requirement for Texans to register their age before accessing a digital provider that allows users to create public profiles can continue to be enforced,” per the court’s decision. Somewhere in the distance, Mark Zuckerberg howls.

Paul Taske’s head disappears back into the trenchcoat, leaving NetChoice headless and vexed. The figure turns to scramble back to its Palo Alto workshop, where there are more lawsuits to be drummed up. Paxton, meanwhile, mounts his horse to return to the capitol, whistling a quiet version of “Old Town Road.”

In the encroaching dusk, a stranger watches from the shadows, pondering what he’s just seen. Has anyone actually been made safer? Has anyone’s right to free speech actually been violated or retained? Deep inside, he knows these questions may never get answered. But on the horizon, he watches as the clouds of litigation gather once again: an endlessly regenerating storm over the cracked and sprawling Texas plains.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  Discord  |  legislation  |  Netchoice  |  Texas age verification