Bluesky is available once again in Mississippi, but this time for only adults ages 18 and up in order to comply with Mississippi’s online age verification law. The platform previously blocked Mississippi IP addresses completely, citing the difficulty of implementing an age verification system for a smaller social media company.
“We continue to believe that Mississippi law limits free speech and disproportionately harms smaller platforms,” Bluesky said in an updated statement on Dec. 8. “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.”
To use the platform, users must verify their age by providing an email address, where Bluesky sends a link to the Kids Web Service portal that people can access to prove their age either by providing the last four digits of their social security number, submitting a picture of their photo ID or by swiping their credit card. Users also must provide their first and last names, birthdays and addresses.
But larger social media giants still have not implemented any age verification systems required under the state law that went into effect earlier this year. In response to requests for comment, neither Meta, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat or X (formerly Twitter) said whether or not they were working on verification systems.
“We are continuing to assess our options as this law makes its way through the courts,” a Meta spokesperson told the Mississippi Free Press in an email on Nov. 11.
Bluesky Blocked Mississippi IPs in August
When announcing its decision to block Mississippi IP addresses, Bluesky claimed in August that the state’s age-verification law created an unfair disadvantage for smaller online platforms. The social-media company said it has created “moderation tools and other infrastructure” to protect minors who use the website while giving users “control over their experience” with Bluesky.
“This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users. We believe effective child-safety policies should be carefully tailored to address real harms, without creating huge obstacles for smaller providers and resulting in negative consequences for free expression,” an Aug. 22 blog post said.
Bluesky halted access to Mississippi that same day after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Mississippi’s law to go into effect. Messages popped up on Mississippi users’ phones when they opened the app.
“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 blog post said.
“The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions,” it continued. “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.”
Bluesky said that larger tech giants like Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, had an advantage because they already had the money and the infrastructure to include the strict age-verification process Mississippi law requires.
“But when you look at Facebook, when you look at the giants out there, it’s not a problem for them because they understand if we’re doing to do business in the state of Mississippi, we’re going to have to make sure we’re complying with the laws and we’re abiding by the laws that have been set forth,” Democratic Mississippi House Rep. Fabian Nelson, one of the authors of the law, told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 17.
This reporter followed up with Nelson and another author of the bill, Republican Rep. Jill Ford, to note that no other large social media platform had disclosed how they are complying with the law. Both lawmakers told this reporter on Nov. 7 to refer to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, whose job is to enforce state laws.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Fitch’s news team on Nov. 7 to ask about enforcing the law, but her office did not respond by press time. Spokespeople for YouTube and X did not respond to the questions the Mississippi Free Press sent on Nov. 7. Neither Snapchat nor TikTok responded to the Mississippi Free Press’ Nov. 10 emails.
Teenager’s Death Inspired Legislation
In 2022, 16-year-old Walker Montgomery died by suicide after scammers on Instagram known as “sextortionists” threatened to release a sexual video of the teenager if he did not send them $1,000. His tragic death inspired Reps. Jill Ford, R-Madison, Fabian Nelson, D-Byram, and Larry Byrd, R-Petal, to craft the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, Ford and Nelson told the Mississippi Free Press during separate conversations.
“The law requires platforms to distinguish between minors and adults because without that step, there’s no way to provide the extra protections children deserve,” Ford told the Mississippi Free Press in a Sept. 17 statement. “This isn’t about government overreach—it’s about making sure children aren’t exposed to harmful material. Any platform operating in Mississippi should be willing to meet that standard.”
Digital service providers must ask the age of all people creating an account with the service and make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify the person’s age under House Bill 1126, which Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law on April 30, 2024.
The law defines “digital service provider” to mean “a website, an application, a program, or software that collects or processes personal identifying information with Internet connectivity.” It specifies services that allow “a user to create or post content that can be viewed by other users of the digital service, including sharing content on: (i) A message board; (ii) A chat room; or (iii) A landing page, video channel or main feed that presents to a user content created and posted by other users.”
Minors cannot create an online account without parental approval under the law. The bill does not include job networking and professional development sites, video games nor services that generate and select news, sports or commercial content without the public’s input.
“I’ve lived in Mississippi my whole life, and the people who are in charge of the state have been using children and families as an excuse to restrict people’s rights for basically the whole 40 years I’ve been alive,” Rainee Scott, a Bluesky user, told the Mississippi Free Press on Oct 21.
Nelson said many parents shared their support for the law with him after the Legislature passed it in 2024.
“We were not looking out for what was in the best interest of technology providers. We were looking out for what’s in the best interest of Mississippians and our children, the people that we served, that we are guarded with the duty of protecting,” Nelson told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 17. “So, no, I didn’t look at Facebook or any of the social-media platforms with intentions of harming them.”
Tech Group Filed Lawsuit Against Age Verification Law
On June 7, 2024, NetChoice, a coalition of online businesses that advocates for free online speech and expression, filed a lawsuit against Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is in charge of enforcing the online age verification law, in the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The organization’s members include Meta, Google, Snapchat, Reddit and Pinterest. Google owns YouTube. TikTok was previously a member of the group until 2024.
Judge Sul Ozerden prevented the law from going into effect on July 1, 2024, and said the law was likely unconstitutional despite lawmakers’ good intentions when writing the legislation.
The case made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied NetChoice’s emergency appeal and request to pause the law while the lawsuit plays out No justices dissented in the order. That decision allowed the law to go into effect in August 2025 while the lawsuit proceeds.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the order that he believed NetChoice probably could successfully show that the law is unconstitutional.
“To be clear, NetChoice 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,” he said in the order.
But the justice said he agreed with the court’s decision because NetChoice did not show it would suffer harm legally if the law went into effect while the lawsuit played out in court.
“In short, under this Court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional,” Kavanaugh said.
NetChoice has a post on its website about the lawsuit that explains that the tech coalition filed the lawsuit because it contains a “a unique provision with broad content moderation parameters that may result in the censorship of vast amounts of speech online,” including Taylor Swift’s new album, the Life of a Showgirl, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Sherlock Holmes.
“As NetChoice has seen in other states, mandating age verification and parental consent for digital services violates privacy and stifles the free exchange of ideas. Mississippi requires websites to block broad protected speech categories, forcing online businesses to censor speech broadly with vague, unclear compliance standards,” the coalition says on its website. “Further, by forcing all websites to identify users, every digital service in Mississippi will need to collect more data and information on their users, including children.”
Some Mississippi Users Find Loopholes to Access Bluesky
During the months while Bluesky blocked access in the state, many Mississippians found workarounds to access the platform anyway, such as with virtual private networks that make it look like a user is accessing from another location, alternative client apps and websites, and browsers with built-in VPNs. The Mississippi Free Press interviewed six Mississippi Bluesky users, and four out of six used a VPN to access the social media platform while it was blocked in Mississippi.
Rainee Scott said she has been an avid Bluesky user since November 2024, when she left X. X became “unbearable” after the 2024 election, she said.
“Twitter was basically the background of my entire daily life, you know? It was for me what Facebook or cable TV are for a lot of people. And then Bluesky just immediately filled that spot when I left Twitter, so I’m basically checking in all day, every day, whenever I’m in between things,” she told the Mississippi Free Press on Oct. 21.
She said staying connected to people on Bluesky was important for her.
“Social media is an important part of my life,” Scott said. “It’s not just a pastime or something that fills time. It’s how I keep in touch with people, it is how I keep in touch with my friends and keep abreast of news and keep abreast of stuff that’s going on in my community.”
L. Williams, who preferred not to use her full name in the article for privacy reasons, has been on Bluesky since X suspended her on Nov. 15, 2024, for criticizing Donald Trump, she said. She then closed her account and made a new profile on Bluesky, which she says has been her top place to find news.
When the app blocked Mississippi, L. Williams recalled her kids saying, “What’s mom going to do?” She constantly sends them Bluesky posts in their family group chat.
She said she respected Bluesky’s choice to block Mississippi to avoid having to collect and track users’ data, noting that she doesn’t have accounts on many other social media platforms because she does not want them to have access to her data.
Skye, a Mississippi Bluesky user who preferred not to use his last name for privacy reasons, has been a daily user of the app for about a year and a half. When he saw that Bluesky was going to block access in Mississippi, he said he was “surprised” and confused. When Bluesky first blocked Mississippi, Skye went back to scrolling on Twitter while trying to find ways to access Bluesky again.
“It seemed like no other websites were really following that law. Like I use a bunch of different websites and social media apps, and Bluesky was the only one that seemed to even respond to the fact that there was some level of (a) ban or restriction going on,” Skye told the Mississippi Free Press on Oct. 16.
Nic Nichols said she could access Bluesky when she was using her phone on data instead of Wi-Fi. Though she posted and scrolled less than she previously did, Nichols said she continued to use Bluesky because it is the “Mississippi social media hub.”
Mississippi user Max, who preferred not to use his last name for privacy reasons, has been using Bluesky for about six months. He said it took the place of X for him.
He had no clue Bluesky was going to be blocked in Mississippi until he tried to use the app on his phone on Aug. 22.
“It’s kind of typical of our Legislature (to be) passing something maybe with the best of intentions and there’s no real-world way to enforce it, you know?” he told the Mississippi Free Press on Oct. 17. “If we all just get free VPNs, then we’re all back on Bluesky and we never had to verify our age to do so. So, what’s the point of the legislation in the first place?”
Bluesky Still Operational in Other Areas With Online Safety Laws
Mississippi House Rep. Fabian Nelson questioned Bluesky’s initial reluctance to implement age checks and said the company should send representatives to Mississippi to show alternative ways to protect minors.
“My question to Bluesky would be is, ‘If this regulation is not in place, what are you doing to protect the kids here in Mississippi?’ Now, if they can definitively give me a response and say, ‘Look, these are the measures we have in place to protect the children,’ I can revisit it. When it comes down to a company putting profit over people, that’s not something I’m ever going to get with,” he said.
Bluesky already complied with the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act of 2023, which requires online platforms to conduct a one-time age verification for users accessing sensitive or adult content. U.K. users are able to go through the age-verification process and continue accessing Bluesky without having to use VPNs or other workarounds. By contrast, Mississippi’s online age-verification process requires platforms to check the age of everyone accessing the service and keep a running log of the ages of all Mississippi users—a distinction that the young platform said made a difference when it initially decided to block state IPs instead of implement a verification system.
Bluesky also already complied with Texas’ online safety law at the time it blocked Mississippi IPs. The Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act of 2024 requires digital service providers to register the age of people creating accounts on the platforms and prevent users from changing their age in the future.
Under that law, digital service providers must also use filtering technology to continuously block “harmful material” and create a database for the “harmful” language and content, including hashtags, synonymous words and purposeful misspellings of words.
“A digital service provider shall develop and implement a strategy to prevent the minor’s exposure to harmful material and other content that: promotes, glorifies, or facilitates suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, stalking, bullying, harassment, grooming, trafficking, child pornography, or other sexual exploitation or abuse,” Texas’ law says.
Like the U.K. law, Texas’ law differs from the Mississippi law in that it does not require social media platforms to maintain a running log of the ages of all Texas users. So long as Texas users complete the age-verification process, they can access Bluesky without using any workarounds.
Nelson pointed to a 2023 Mississippi law that requires pornography websites to verify that users are 18 or older, which he said caused some porn companies to pull out of Mississippi because they did not want to go through the verification process. Several major pornography websites blocked Mississippi IP addresses and began displaying messages similar to the one Bluesky now displays. People frequently use VPNs to get around those IP blocks, too.
“Our rules are more stringent and stricter than what other states are doing, which, at the end of the day, is accomplishing the goal, which is protecting our minors from being victimized on the internet, such as the young man this legislation is titled after, Walker Montgomery,” Nelson said.
Instagram, the Meta platform where sextortionists targeted Walker Montgomery, is among those that still have not implemented the required age-verification checks for Mississippi users.