Texas lawmakers are taking a closer look at how social media, gaming platforms and app stores affect children, with online safety emerging as a likely issue for the Legislature when lawmakers return to Austin in January.

House and Senate committees held hearings this week examining children's online safety, hearing testimony about social media algorithms, gaming addiction, age verification, parental controls and the responsibilities of technology companies. The Senate State Affairs Committee held hearings Sept. 14 and 15 as part of its interim work ahead of the 90th Legislature.

Several witnesses appeared before lawmakers during the hearings, including Dr. Daniel Flint, a pediatric psychologist at Texas Children's Hospital, and Maurine Molak, whose late son David is the namesake of David's Law, the state's 2017 legislation targeting cyberbullying and harassment involving students.

Flint used his experience working with young people to describe the online environments children can encounter — including material parents may not recognize even when it appears in plain sight.

“Imagine you glance at a teen’s social media profile. In her bio, next to her name, you see two emojis: a bright yellow star and fluffy white wing,” Flint told senators.

“In the world of social media, these symbols stand for star wing, starving. It's an intentional pro-anorexic digital code, signaling to internet strangers that she's actively starving herself, inviting them herself, inviting them to critique her body and encourage deeper restriction,” he said.

Flint summed up one of his concerns with a phrase that resurfaced throughout the discussions: “you cannot outparent an algorithm.”

“It's a stark reminder of how completely in the dark we as adults are about what our kids are experiencing behind their screens,” he said.

Parents, platforms and responsibility

Molak brought a parent's perspective to the hearings, describing the death of her son following what she called “a year-long struggle with social media and online gaming addiction.”

She told lawmakers David was repeatedly able to work around the restrictions his parents attempted to put in place.

“Each time we thought we had blocked one source of harm, he found another way around our authority or consent,” Molak said.

She described his behavior as resembling “addiction,” but placed responsibility for the broader problem on inadequate parental controls, misleading age ratings, microtransactions, loot boxes, notifications and a lack of meaningful support for parents.

Those concerns fed into a larger discussion about whether online services should be required to operate with stronger protections for minors turned on by default rather than requiring parents or young users to find and activate those protections themselves.

Witnesses and lawmakers discussed stronger age-verification systems, “safety by default” settings and greater accountability for platforms when their content or product designs cause harm to minors.

State Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, also emphasized that legislation would not eliminate the responsibility parents have for their children's online activity.

“You mentioned that parents have the capacity and authority, but I would also go further and say they have the responsibility … we have parents buying phones for four- or five-year-olds and getting them addicted to TikTok and games,” Schwertner said.

“It comes down to, really, the parents, to be quite frank, and the breakdown of society in that respect, and I’m not sure how we fix it. We’re going to do something about this, legislatively, but it’s not going to fix the problem.”

State Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, vice chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee, acknowledged that role while pointing to circumstances in which parental involvement alone may not prevent harm. The committee's official roster lists Paxton as vice chair.

“It'd be wonderful if everybody had perfect relationships with their kids,” Paxton said.

“But we also know that in great families with great relationships, bad things still happen … I appreciate what y'all have shared with us so that we can do what we need to do as government to have those defaults of safety.”

App stores and age verification

Lawmakers also revisited Senate Bill 2420, the App Store Accountability Act approved during the 2025 legislative session.

Authored by Paxton and sponsored in the House by state Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo, the law requires app stores to use commercially reasonable methods to verify users' ages. Accounts belonging to minors must be linked to a parent or guardian, with parental approval required for app downloads and purchases. The legislation was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 27, 2025, but subsequently became the subject of federal litigation.

The constitutional fight over SB 2420 has since reached the U.S. Supreme Court through emergency proceedings. Supporters have characterized the law as a way to restore parental control over children's app use, while challengers have argued that its age-verification and consent requirements burden constitutionally protected speech.

David Dunmoyer, associate vice president of campaigns for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Fairly's husband, told lawmakers there are additional areas where legislation such as SB 2420 could potentially be strengthened.

He pointed to Roblox, which lawmakers scrutinized over user-created content, including content simulating the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. A Roblox representative did not appear at the House hearing.

Dunmoyer questioned how platforms should be treated when potentially harmful material is created by users rather than the company itself.

“They say, ‘Oh, that’s a third-party person who created it. Our platform is 13 plus. What they do doesn’t dictate here.’ So that's something, immediately, I’m struck … there's a way to improve,” Dunmoyer said.

Algorithms could face more scrutiny

Algorithmic feeds were another target of discussion.

Witnesses raised concerns that feeds designed to continually serve users personalized material can encourage compulsive use and repeatedly expose young people to content tailored to their interests and vulnerabilities.

Lawmakers discussed whether additional barriers could be placed around those systems for minors, adding algorithmic design to a growing list of online practices that could draw legislative attention.

The hearings extended beyond children's online safety. Lawmakers also considered interim charges involving the former Texas Lottery Commission, online betting and protections for families and children in the court system.

The discussions come as lawmakers prepare for the 90th regular legislative session, which begins Jan. 12, 2027.

What emerges from the hearings will become clearer once lawmakers begin filing legislation in November. But this week's testimony offered an early look at a debate likely to continue at the Capitol: how much responsibility should rest with parents, how much should rest with technology companies, and where state government should draw the line.