Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced that he has secured an emergency Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against Discord, requiring the company to immediately change several default account settings for Texas Users and halt certain safety-related marketing claims while litigation proceeds.
The court order was signed the same day Paxton's office filed a lawsuit against Discord, alleging the platform exposed children to online predators while misleading parents and consumers about its safety practices.
"Discord designed a predator's paradise, switched off the safeguards by default, and looked Texas parents in the eye and called it safe," said AG Paxton. "That is not negligence. That is evil dressed up as a safety policy."
Under the TRO, Discord must immediately place four key account settings into their most protective configurations for Texas users. The order requires the platform to block sensitive content rather than merely blur it, disable friend requests from "Everyone," turn off direct-message social permissions, and set spam filtering to "Filter All."
"A court ordered Discord to stop, and I will pursue this company with the full unrelenting force of the law until every child in Texas is protected from the sick predators it invited in," said Paxton.
According to Paxton's office, these settings affect some of the most common ways predators contact children online. The lawsuit alleges that Discord previously left those protections disabled by default, requiring users and parents to manually activate them.
The court order also prohibits Discord from representing that the platform is "safe by design," "safe by default," and that safety is "at the core of everything" the company does or that it maintains a "zero-tolerance" policy if those claims conflict with the platform's actual operations.
Additionally, Discord must preserve moderation and enforcement records, suspend the automatic deletion of user violation records after 90 days, and provide a verified report within 14 days detailing its default settings, workforce safety staffing levels, and information regarding users who return after being banned.
The lawsuit remains pending as Texas seeks additional remedies and enforcement measures against the company.
