Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Chinese-owned social platform TikTok for violating a new parental consent law aimed at protecting children online.
The SCOPE Act—Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment—requires digital service providers to register the age of users, prevent harm, create parental control tools, and block advertisers from promoting adult content to minors. It also prohibits sharing minors’ identifying information without parental consent.
On Thursday, Paxton filed suit against TikTok for allegedly violating this law.
“I will continue to hold TikTok and other Big Tech companies accountable for exploiting Texas children and failing to prioritize minors’ online safety and privacy,” Paxton said. “Texas law requires social media companies to protect kids online and provide parents with the tools to do so. TikTok and other platforms cannot ignore their duties under Texas law.”
The lawsuit seeks civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. TikTok denied the allegations in a statement to Texas Scorecard.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations and, in fact, we offer robust safeguards for teens and parents, including family pairing, all of which are publicly available. We stand by the protections we provide families,” a spokesperson said.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, employs Chinese Communist Party members and has a subsidiary partially owned by the CCP. The app has over 150 million users in the United States.
Concerns about TikTok’s data harvesting led Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to ban the platform from state-issued devices and networks in 2022.
