A sweeping new age assurance law in Mississippi has sparked debate over which decentralized platforms — such as Bluesky, Mastodon, and others — are best equipped to protect online freedoms from government crackdowns. Last week, Bluesky announced it would block access to its service within the state rather than comply with the law. In a blog post, the company said its small team lacked the resources to make the extensive technical adjustments the law demands and warned of the legislation’s overly broad scope and potential threats to user privacy.

Figure 1. Decentralized Social Networks Face Test Under Mississippi’s Age Verification Law.

Mississippi’s HB 1126 requires social platforms to verify every user’s age before granting access, including services like Bluesky. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to block the law through an emergency appeal, allowing it to take effect while ongoing legal challenges proceed. This left Bluesky with a difficult choice: comply with the mandate or risk fines of up to $10,000 per user. Figure 1 shows Decentralized Social Networks Face Test Under Mississippi’s Age Verification Law.

In response, many Mississippi users turned to VPNs as a workaround. But others questioned the need for such measures, noting that decentralized social networks were intended to limit state or institutional control over online communities in the first place.

On Mastodon, the decentralized network built on the ActivityPub protocol, founder Eugen Rochko reacted to Bluesky’s decision with a pointed remark toward the competing platform.

“This is why real decentralization matters,” he wrote. “No one can decide for the entire fediverse to block Mississippi.”

Techdirt founder and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick pushed back on Rochko’s comment, calling it “potentially misleading.” He noted that while others can host their own versions of the network, major instances could still face legal risk. “Will the largest instances, which you run, be willing to pay the $10k per-user fines in Mississippi? The state can still go after instances, no?” he asked, referring to mastodon.social, the flagship server Rochko operates.

When contacted by TechCrunch, Mastodon did not respond about whether mastodon.social would comply with the law. The statute itself is broad, suggesting that not only social networks but also “message boards,” “chat rooms,” “landing pages,” “video channels,” and even a platform’s “main feed” could fall under its scope.

After Bluesky announced it would block users in Mississippi, Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick got into a sharp exchange online. Rochko criticized Bluesky for relying on infrastructure run entirely by one U.S. company — Bluesky PBC — and noted that this was the first time anyone from Bluesky had reached out to him about “working together” on legislation since the platform’s launch. “Well, I believe you have my e-mail address,” he quipped.

The reality sits somewhere between their arguments. Mastodon links thousands of servers through the ActivityPub protocol, while Bluesky runs on the AT Protocol, which emphasizes account portability and decentralized moderation. Unlike Mastodon’s approach, where anyone can run a full server, Bluesky allows people to host individual pieces of its infrastructure, such as personal data servers (PDS), relays, moderation lists, or algorithms. Still, because the network is young, Bluesky PBC remains the largest PDS operator — meaning most users rely on its systems. Communities like Blacksky, however, have already begun spinning up their own PDS, and others are experimenting with independent relays and appviews.

For Mississippi users, the technical debates do little to restore access. Some have found workarounds beyond VPNs, including third-party clients like Graysky, Skeets, Klearsky, TOKIMEKI, Flashes, or forked apps such as Deer.social and Zeppelin. Blacksky confirmed it won’t block users anywhere, regardless of location. Others have turned to a sideloaded Bluesky app available on the AltStore, or used read-only tools like Anartia’s search engine.

But these fixes may be temporary. Client developers and app makers will need to weigh whether becoming a go-to alternative in Mississippi is worth the legal risk. The law is written broadly enough to apply to nearly any service where users can create profiles, post content, and interact — from full networks to message boards and chat rooms. Whether Bluesky’s third-party clients, which don’t host their own PDS, are outside the scope of the law remains a question that might be tough to argue in court.

Mississippi isn’t alone in pursuing age-assurance mandates. Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Virginia are weighing similar bills — with Virginia’s draft even proposing time limits on social media use. Such laws tend to favor large, centralized platforms like Facebook or Instagram, which can absorb the compliance costs, while smaller, decentralized projects may be forced to withdraw.

That irony isn’t lost on users: decentralization was supposed to give people more freedom, yet overly broad laws may leave only the giants standing.

Source: TC

Cite this article:

Priyadharshini S (2025), Mississippi’s Age Verification Law Challenges Decentralized Social Networks, AnaTechMaz, pp.231