Privacy experts who spoke to WIRED called Rumble, Quora and WeChat unusual suspects, but declined to speculate on the reasoning behind including them in the investigation. Josh Golin, executive director of FairPlay, a nonprofit that advocates for digital safety for children, says the concerns aren't always obvious. For example, some advocacy groups were concerned about Pinterest. The case of a British teenager They say he died from self-harm after being exposed to sensitive material on stage.
Paxton's press release last month described his new investigation as “an important step toward ensuring that social media and AI companies comply with our laws designed to protect children from exploitation and harm.”
United States Congress never passed A comprehensive privacy lawand this has not significantly updated child online safety rules In a quarter of a century. This has left state lawmakers and regulators to play a larger role.
Paxton's investigation centers on compliance with online child protection through Texas's Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE. which became effective on September. It applies to any website or app that has social media or chat functions and that registers users under the age of 18, making it broader than the federal law, which only covers users under the age of 13. Covers the services provided.
The scope requires services to ask users' age and to grant parents or guardians rights over children's account settings and user data. Companies are also barred from selling information collected about minors without parental permission. In October, Paxton sued TikTok for allegedly violating the law by providing inadequate parental controls and disclosing data without consent. TikTok has denied the allegations.
The investigation announced last month also referenced the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act tdpsaWhich went into effect in July and requires parental consent before processing data about users under the age of 13. According to legal demands obtained through a public records request, Paxton's office has asked the companies being investigated to provide details of their compliance with both the SCOPE Act and the TDPSA. ,
In total, the companies have until next week to answer eight questions, including the number of Texas minors they count as users and the number of times they were banned for entering a false date of birth. The list of with whom the data of minors has been sold or shared will have to be revised. It was not known whether any company had already responded to the demand.
Tech company lobbying groups are challenging the constitutionality of the SCOPE Act in court. In August, they won an initial and partial victory when a federal judge in Austin, Texas, ruled that a provision requiring companies to take steps to prevent minors from self-harming and viewing abusive material was too vague.
But even a complete victory may not be any relief for the tech companies. Ariel Fox Johnson, an attorney and principal at consultancy Digital Smarts Law & Policy, says states including Maryland and New York are expected to enact similar laws later this year. And state attorneys general may resort to pursuing narrow cases under their tried-and-tested laws barring deceptive business practices. “We see that often information is shared or sold or disclosed in a way that the family doesn't expect or understand,” Johnson says. “As more laws are enacted that create firmer requirements, it is becoming more apparent that not everyone is in compliance.”