Bluesky goes dark in Mississippi over ‘likely unconstitutional’ age verification law
The US Supreme Court recently chose not to intervene—for now—in the enforcement of a Mississippi state law that requires social media sites to verify and track user ages. As a result, unofficial Twitter offshoot Bluesky will go dark in the state.
“Starting today, if you access Bluesky from a Mississippi IP address, you’ll see a message explaining why the app isn’t available,” wrote the company in a statement published online. “This block will remain in place while the courts decide whether the law will stand.”
The Mississippi law says that social media sites must verify the ages of new users and obtain parental consent before allowing kids under 18 to make an account. The sites must also “make commercially reasonable efforts to develop and implement a strategy” that insulates known minors from certain harmful material and behavior, such as online bullying, sexual exploitation, or anything that may encourage substance abuse.
The law exempts a number of services, including those whose primary function is to provide access to “online video games,” so Steam is likely unaffected—but you can bet that Valve and every other big gaming company is closely watching the development of internet age verification laws in the US, UK, and elsewhere.
Bluesky, which promotes the idea that decentralized social media “protocols” should replace centralized “platforms” like X, says that it cannot realistically follow Mississippi’s law.
“Unlike tech giants with vast resources, we’re a small team focused on building decentralized social technology that puts users in control,” said the company. “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.”
Bluesky does comply with the UK’s controversial Online Safety Act, which also requires internet services to verify user ages. The company says that the UK’s law is narrower than Mississippi’s—it only requires age verification when a user tries to access specific material—and is therefore more realistic to implement.
“[In the UK], Bluesky is still accessible for everyone, age checks are required only for accessing certain content and features, and Bluesky does not know and does not track which UK users are under 18,” said the company. “Mississippi’s law, by contrast, would block everyone from accessing the site—teens and adults—unless they hand over sensitive information, and once they do, the law in Mississippi requires Bluesky to keep track of which users are children.”
Apps using Bluesky’s AT Protocol will make their own decisions about compliance, as the company’s announcement only applies to the Bluesky app itself: “We believe this flexibility is one of the strengths of decentralized systems—different providers can make decisions that align with their values and capabilities, especially during periods of regulatory uncertainty.”
Mississippi’s law may still wind up in the bin. The Supreme Court wasn’t convinced by tech group NetChoice’s request to pause enforcement of the law while it’s assessed by the courts, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh nevertheless wrote that the law is “likely unconstitutional.”
The Supreme Court did affirm a Texas internet age verification law recently, although that one requires age verification only for sites that host a significant amount of “sexual material harmful to minors,” not for any user on any social media site.
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