Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading a broad investigation into 15 tech companies, including Rumble, Quora, and WeChat, over their data collection and use practices involving minors. This investigation, triggered by a new Texas law called SCOPE, follows Paxton's previous actions against tech giants like Google, Meta, Apple, and TikTok. The investigation aims to ensure compliance with Texas law aimed at protecting children online, with potential penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars per company if violations are found.
Over the past decade, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has wielded his office’s significant resources to investigate well-known tech giants including Google and Meta over how they moderate content and treat rivals. He helped win settlements against Apple for allegedly misleading users and is suing TikTok for allegedly endangering children's privacy.
has learned. Rumble, Quora, and WeChat are among the 15 companies from which Texas has demanded answers by next week about their collection and use of data of people under 18 years old. Paxton announced the investigation in a press release last month but named only four of the companies being probed—Character.AI, Reddit, Instagram, and Discord.
obtained the names of additional targeted companies through a public records request. They also include Kick, Kik, Pinterest, Telegram, Twitch, Tumblr, WhatsApp, and Whisper. Paxton’s office did not respond to requests for comment, including about how it chose which businesses to investigate. But the variety of companies questioned highlights the sprawling reach of a new Texas law aimed at increasing oversight of minors’ use of social media and chat services.
described Rumble, Quora, and WeChat as unusual suspects but declined to speculate on the rationale behind their inclusion in the investigation. Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit Fairplay, which advocates for digital safety for kids, says concerns aren’t always obvious. Few advocacy groups worried about Pinterest, for example, until the case of a British teen who died from self-harm following exposure to sensitive content on the platform, he says.
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