Bluesky social media app restores access for adult Mississippians
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The social media platform said it would allow legal adults in Mississippi to access its app, while keeping the service unavailable for minors.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The social media app Bluesky restored access to its platform this week to Mississippians over the age of 18, partially reversing an August decision to block access for all users in the state in response to a state age-verification law.
Applying a new policy update Bluesky also implemented in Australia, the decentralized social media platform said it would allow legal adults in Mississippi to access its app, while keeping the service unavailable for minors. Bluesky made the change after altering its "Age Assurance system," despite its ongoing concerns over a 2024 Mississippi state law that requires users of websites and other digital services to verify their age.
"We continue to believe that Mississippi law limits free speech and disproportionately harms smaller platforms," the company said in a statement. "As a result, we will not follow the law’s requirements to track children’s online conduct in detail, and we will not devote our limited resources to build the verification systems, parental consent workflows, and compliance infrastructure the law requires. However, because we have the technical means to offer a choice for older users, we want to let them decide for themselves if they are comfortable confirming that they are at least 18 years old."
In August, Bluesky announced that it would go dark in Mississippi after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a Mississippi age-verification law, which the company said limits free expression, invades people’s privacy and unfairly targets smaller social media companies.
Bluesky grew after the 2024 presidential election. Many users of X, which is owned by Elon Musk, retreated from the platform in response to the billionaire’s strong support of President Donald Trump.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican whose office defended the law, told the justices that age verification could help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion and more,” activities that the First Amendment does not protect.
The age verification law added Mississippi to a list of Republican-led states where similar legal challenges are playing out.
NetChoice is challenging laws passed in Mississippi and other states that require social media users to verify their ages, and asked the Supreme Court to keep the measure on hold while a lawsuit plays out.
That came after a federal judge prevented the 2024 law from taking effect. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds.
On Aug. 14, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group representing major platforms such as Facebook, X and YouTube.
Bluesky made the policy update in Mississippi this week in conjunction with a similar change in Australia, where a new online age assurance law takes effect on Dec. 10.
