Mississippi enacted a law requiring age verification to access social media sites, extending beyond laws limited to explicit-content platforms. Bluesky ceased operations in the state, citing obligations to collect sensitive personal information, perform age checks, and identify which users are children or face massive fines under the law. The measure raises privacy and free-speech concerns and is especially burdensome for smaller and emerging platforms. Age verification demands significant infrastructure, developer time, privacy safeguards, and ongoing compliance monitoring, costs that can overwhelm small teams building decentralized social technology that aims to put users in control.
Mississippi's approach would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky. The Supreme Court's recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi's age assurance law-and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site-or risk massive fines. The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions.
We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies. Unlike tech giants with vast resources, we're a small team focused on building decentralized social technology that puts users in control. Age verification systems require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring - costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers.
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