Bluesky blocks Mississippi users due to ID verification law
The Bluesky social network has decided to block all devices from the state of Mississippi due to its far-reaching law that has some exceptionally broad requirements in the name of protecting children. The Bluesky Team:
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.
Laws like these favor tech giants (which have the money to throw at compliance) and require the collection of sensitive identification material from every user for any purpose. As anyone who has followed the data leaks in the Tea app already knows, strict ID requirements for all users open up enormous risks for all users.
Bluesky complies with the UK’s Online Safety Act, “where age checks are required only for specific content and features.” But Mississippi’s law is a bridge too far.
Important to note: The case is being appealed and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has gone so far as to write, that the appealing party “has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits—namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this Court’s precedents.” Unfortunately, Kavanaugh and his colleagues refused to set aside the law in the meantime.