Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a lawsuit this week aimed at forcing Netflix to get rid of its auto-play feature and purge data about user habits. Pivoting hard to the left during a Republican primary is a novel strategy, but American politics has always been a little strange.
Paxton is trying take political advantage of parental anxieties about the streamer, but his desired changes would make Netflix less convenient and useful for its customers. The data collection allows Netflix’s algorithm to serve up personalized suggestions for shows and movies that someone might enjoy. The auto-play feature allows people to move seamlessly from one episode to the next.
Paxton says collecting that data is “spying” and going from one show to the next is “addictive.” But no one is forced to sign up for Netflix, and people are clearly happy with the service without a politician dictating how it ought to be run.
Paxton’s suit rests on claims that Netflix deceived customers back in 2020 when its leaders marketed the company as a “safe respite” from the advertising and data collection that many of its competitors engaged in. True enough. CEO Reed Hastings made that core to the company’s branding back then.
Yet, as is often the case in the fast-moving world of technology, the business dynamic changed. Multiple competitors entered the market, including Disney+ and Paramount+. That contributed to Netflix’s first loss of subscribers in more than a decade.
Meanwhile, the cost of producing content skyrocketed. By 2022, out of necessity, Netflix changed course. It cracked down on password sharing and expanded advertising.
Perhaps the company’s leaders misled viewers when they said they had “zero interest” in advertising and implausibly promised that they “don’t collect anything.” Or perhaps they realized their old business model wouldn’t keep them competitive, so they adapted to survive.
Whatever one thinks of Netflix, consumers are capable of judging for themselves.
Paxton’s suit points to Netflix’s marketing toward children as particularly malevolent. The complaint describes the service’s auto-play feature as part of a “dark pattern” that “undermines parents’ control of their children’s screen time.”
Unmentioned is the fact that parents can turn off that feature whenever they want. Netflix says Paxton’s complaint is full of “inaccurate and distorted information” while ignoring its “kid‑friendly parental controls and transparent privacy practices.”
Also worth mentioning: If parents are concerned about the company using viewer data to customize ads, they can cancel their subscriptions without penalty any time. For all the scale Netflix has achieved, there are plenty of competing firms.
Paxton’s suit is exactly the sort of frivolous litigation we feared would be unleashed by March’s judgment against Meta and YouTube in Los Angeles. In that case, which Paxton cites in his suit, a jury embraced a novel legal theory that the platforms were negligent in designing their products and failing to warn users about potential harms.
This will be a boon for trial lawyers if it’s not struck down for clearly violating the First Amendment rights of the technology companies. But it will also be a blow for personal and parental responsibility in America. It’s up to parents to limit screen time for their kids, not software developers.
Paxton has never been big on taking personal responsibility. Several of his former staffers turned against him after what they viewed as corrupt dealings with a developer who had hired his mistress. He was impeached by the Texas House after asking the legislature to pony up $3.3 million to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit but acquitted by the state Senate.
Paxton is running neck-and-neck with Sen. John Cornyn ahead of a GOP runoff on May 26, and he hopes to distract from his personal baggage with stunts like the lawsuit against Netflix. Will Texas Republicans replace an establishment senator with Bernie Sanders Lite?
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