Bluesky Suspends Service in Mississippi Due to New Age Verification Laws

Bluesky has suspended its services to all customers in Mississippi due to the state’s latest age verification laws.

Decentralized social platform Bluesky is announcing that it will be unable to provide access to users from Mississippi due to the state’s recently amended age verification law. Bluesky says it is unable to comply with the law because of its limited resources and personnel.

Understanding Mississippi’s “WMPCO Act”

Under Mississippi’s newly enacted “Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act,” which was affirmed by the Supreme Court earlier this month and requires that all social networks that operate within Mississippi must confirm the age of each user and seek the consent of parents prior to allowing minors to establish accounts. This requirement is causing some controversy.

Opponents claim the law impedes the freedom to express oneself across different demographics. However, Bluesky warns that the legislation presents a lot of operational challenges.

As Bluesky explains:

“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.”

Challenges for Smaller Decentralized Platforms

In contrast to tech giants, Bluesky operates with a smaller team that is focused on developing decentralized social technologies that give users more control. The company states:

“Age verification systems require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring – costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers. This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users.”

Due to these limitations, Bluesky has chosen to restrict access to Mississippi instead of facing legal penalties.

Comparative study of UK Online Safety Regulations

Bluesky is proud of its conformity to the United Kingdom’s “Online Safety Act,” which requires verification of age only for specific content, rather than a blanket check on each user.

“Bluesky follows the UK’s Online Safety Act, where age checks are required only for specific content and features.”

This is in stark contrast to Mississippi’s broad law, which requires age verification before any user can access the platform, a requirement that Bluesky’s team of a few members finds impossible to manage.

Bluesky discusses the privacy and technical aspects of compliance:

“That means, under the law, we would need to verify every user’s age and obtain parental consent for anyone under 18. Building the required verification systems, parental consent workflows, and compliance infrastructure would require significant resources that our small team is currently unable to spare as we invest in developing safety tools and features for our global community, particularly given the law’s broad scope and privacy implications.”

Broader Implications for Decentralized Social Networks

The Mississippi case raises important concerns about the possibility of imposing age limits on platforms that are decentralized and lack central governance structures and the ability to control their users in a hierarchical manner. 

Bluesky asserts that they are working on the foundational elements to restrict access to inappropriate content, but managing this on the scale it is currently.

While state regulators consider the issue, the final outcome could set the standard on how age verification should be dealt with in decentralized digital environments that balance the privacy of the user, regulatory compliance, and technical capabilities.

At present, Bluesky users in Mississippi are not able to access the platform due to compliance issues. This situation highlights the continuing tensions between regulatory efforts to protect minors and the actual realities facing new social platforms.

Personal Take

This case is an excellent illustration for policymakers and platform developers, and highlights how important it is to develop nuanced solutions that safeguard users without restricting the development process or limiting scaling in new technologies.