Just a special bonus post to let you know that accounts in Mississippi USA are working just fine on the Fediverse. There are no corporate overlords that can block them.
For example you could follow these:
➡️ @msfreepress - Non-profit local news site based in Mississippi, women-run
➡️ @thedeltareview - Blog about culture and lifestyle in Mississippi and the Southeastern USA
➡️ @MSTODAYnews - Non-profit news organisation covering Mississippi
@FediFollows @msfreepress @thedeltareview @MSTODAYnews
How does the law affect them?
I am not a lawyer so I can't usefully comment.
However, at a technical level the power to block or not is not controlled by any corporation or other central organisation. There's no one who can just press a button to take people off the entire network.
@dlupham @FediFollows @midgephoto Any such instance should indeed shut down if they are not up for open defiance.
I am hoping the Mastodon software never even offers an OPTION to do age verification, so as not to let the thin end of the wedge into our network.
The issue for this on the Mastodon github has been hammered wirh NOs thankfully.
If this cracks, there will always be noncomplying instances as no country not even the US can control all hosting globally.
@FediFollows
Censorship is regarded as damage and routed around.
Vs Don't fight city hall
@FediFollows @msfreepress @MSTODAYnews @jwz
*sigh* The only one that’s close to resistant to the same issue is @thedeltareview. The other two are also bound by the same laws and I’d wait and see how smaller instances handle attempts at being held to them.
Can the two nominally news focused instances get away with being news focused, if not, how would they fare if some fash decides that over a third of their content is “ detrimental to minors? “
The stupid law even applies to sole proprietors, so even tiny single user instances aren’t outside its purview. Would they waste the time?, probably not, but I wouldn’t bet against a Kim Davis shuttering an instance with a frivolous suit.
@FediFollows Let's be clear, access to BlueSky, or other services that refuse to age-verify their users, is not being blocked by "corporate overlords." They are being blocked by censorship laws.
Bluesky are doing the only objective thing they can to both protect their users from huge and overreaching breaches of personal privacy, and protecting themselves from ruinous fines (or in the case of a similar law in the UK, from criminal charges).
Any owner of a mastodon instance based in the US is at this moment facing the same dilemma. Breach your users' privacy, or IP block any states that enact similar laws, or risk possible bankruptcy / criminal charges.
This is not the time to tout that your preferred decentralized social network is the bestest and declare it not your problem. This is the time to rally against similar bills being proposed in other states, other countries, and against KOSA, the US federal bill that would do this nationwide.
@FediFollows
In fact, let's be even more clear: The BIG corporate sites like Youtube and Facebook don't give a fuck about these laws. They don't care about their users privacy, and they have plenty of budget to build the infrastructure to force their users to surrender their privacy with age verification and identity verification systems.
They in fact LOVE the prospect, because it adds a compliance burden they can pass which smaller sites cannot. Smaller sites like Bluesky AND like mastodon instances, get fucked.
But the thing is. Mastodon users can simply move their account to an EU based instance. Yes, it is the terrible censorship laws that are triggering this, but since Bluesky us not really a decentralized network, their users have no options.
Everything you said about censorship laws is 100% on target, but this episode exposes the vulnerability of Bluesky to such government actions. And make no mistake there will be more to come.
@mastodonmigration @FediFollows
From a user's perspective I would imagine just using a VPN would be a less complicated solution than trying to find a new server and completing a migration process.
But yes, this remains a problem for the operator of any user-content site that operates in areas where these laws are enacted. You can say that mastodon being decentralized makes it more resilient against this sort of thing, but it's kind of like saying torrents are more resilient against copyright law. Technically true, but not a great place to be in if you're a server operator.
The issue from the user's perspective is resilience. Particularly when you are heading into uncertain times, the overall defensibility of the network and the ability to relocate to safe places is paramount. Bluesky PBC provides a single point of vulnerability for the entire network, so it is not a system with inherent resilience despite what their marketing department trumpets.
Edit: And yes expect a lot of Mississippi grandma's are signing up for VPNs tonight.
David Gonzalez
FediFollows
a fading echo
dlupham
LukefromDC
Christine McCloud
sen
House Panther 
Ceremus
Mastodon Migration
Joltrast