12 Days of Regulatory Insights: Day 8 – How State AGs Are Rewriting Social Media Rules

Regulatory Oversight Podcast

In this episode of our special 12 Days of Regulatory Insights podcast series, Ashley Taylor, co-leader of Troutman Pepper Locke's State AG team, sits down with Privacy and Cyber chair Ron Raether to discuss how state attorneys general (AGs) are shaping the regulatory landscape for social media and the broader ad tech ecosystem.

Ashley and Ron unpack AG priorities ranging from "AI washing" and scrutiny of predictive analytics — especially algorithmic pricing with consumer and antitrust implications — to the rising focus on consent management, transparency, and the maturity of compliance programs beyond paper policies. Ron explains how AGs are augmenting traditional investigatory tools (CIDs and subpoenas) with technologists and pre-investigation analytics, and highlights active states — including California, Colorado, Oregon, and Texas — along with core focus areas such as children's and teens' privacy, health-related data, and potential bias in algorithms. They then dig into the intensifying attention on data brokers, evolving registration and enforcement (including California's strike force), and practical challenges posed by deletion requirements. Ron closes with a pragmatic playbook: be prepared and test for operational compliance, tailor programs to business risk for real ROI, and engage regulators proactively — underscored by a simple but critical metric for compliance excellence: do what you say.