Mississippi's age assurance law puts decentralized social networks to the test | TechCrunch

Mississippi enacted HB 1126, requiring platforms to verify the age of all users before granting access to social networks. Bluesky chose to block access in Mississippi rather than implement the substantial technical changes and privacy-impacting verification the company could not resource. The Supreme Court declined an emergency appeal that would have paused the law, leaving Bluesky exposed to fines up to $10,000 per user. Mississippi users sought workarounds such as VPNs. The dispute renewed debate over decentralization, with Mastodon leadership asserting distributed resilience while critics warned that decentralization does not automatically prevent enforcement or operational consequences.

The company that makes the Bluesky social app announced last week that it would block access to its service in the state of Mississippi, rather than comply with the new age verification law. In a blog post, the company explained that, as a small team, it lacked the resources to implement the substantial technical changes required by the law, and it raised concerns about the law's broad scope and potential privacy implications.

The law, HB 1126, requires platforms to implement age verification for all users before they can access social networks like Bluesky. Recently, the Supreme Court justices decided to block an emergency appeal that would have prevented the law from going into effect as the legal challenges it faces played out in the courts. This forced Bluesky to make a decision of its own: either comply or risk hefty fines of up to $10,000 per user.

On Mastodon, the decentralized social network running the ActivityPub protocol, founder Eugen Rochko responded to the announcement from Bluesky by taking a bit of a potshot at the rival social network. "And this is why real decentralization matters," he wrote. "There is nobody that can decide for the fediverse to block Mississippi." This prompted a response from Techdirt founder and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick, who said Rochko's statement was "potentially misleading."

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