Key Points:

• Bluesky has blocked access in Mississippi after the state’s HB 1126 law took effect, requiring age verification for all social media users, with fines up to $10,000 per violation.
• The company said compliance would force all Mississippi users to provide sensitive personal data and require Bluesky to track minors, creating privacy and free speech concerns.
• Bluesky stressed child safety is a priority but argued the law disadvantages smaller platforms; its decision applies only to the Bluesky app on the AT Protocol, not other apps on the network.
• Virtual private networks, like those offered by NordVPN, ExpressVPN and PureVPN, may allow some affected users to continue accessing Bluesky.

Social media platform Bluesky will no longer be available to users who appear to access the service from Mississippi after that state passed an onerous age verification law, the service affirmed on Friday.

The law, House Bill 1126, requires online platforms like Bluesky to verify the age of every user before granting anyone access, and further requires affirmative parental consent for users who are under the age of 18. Platforms that fail to comply are subject to fines of $10,000 per violation.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the law while ongoing legal challenges are resolved, forcing platforms like Bluesky to decide how to respond.

“Keeping children safe online is a core priority for Bluesky,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We’ve invested a lot of time and resources building moderation tools and other infrastructure to protect the youngest members of our community. We’re also aware of the tradeoffs that come with managing an online platform.”

Officials at Bluesky said Mississippi’s approach “would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky” by forcing everyone to provide sensitive personal information.

“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,” Bluesky said. “Until legal challenges to this law are resolved, we’ve made the difficult decision to block access from Mississippi IP addresses.”

With the ban only applying to IP addresses, Bluesky users can easily circumvent the restriction by relocating the IP address of their computer to a server outside Mississippi. Virtual private networks, like those offered by NordVPN, ExpressVPN and PureVPN, are among the easiest and cheapest ways to do just that — and they work across devices, including personal computers, smartphones and tablets. 

Bluesky warned the law “creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals” and could result in “significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies.”

“Unlike tech giants with vast resources, we’re a small team focused on building decentralized social technology that puts users in control,” Bluesky asserts. “Age verification systems require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring — costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers.”

Bluesky compared Mississippi’s mandate with the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, which requires age checks only for specific content or features.

“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,” the company warned.

Bluesky runs on top of a technological framework called the “AT Protocol,” which allows other individuals and companies to launch services similar to Bluesky Social, but with their own rules in place. Those other services are allowed to connect to Bluesky Social in some capacity, though the company is allowed to restrict third parties on the AT Protocol from interacting with its users. Bluesky Social is the largest community built on top of the AT Protocol.