Mastodon says it doesn’t ‘have the means’ to comply with age verification laws: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/
Discussion
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@Sarahp I knew there was more than one good reason to host my instance outside of the United States.
@Sarahp so how will Mississippi or UK enforce? The jurisdictions can block the IPs themselves. Why should the providers outside the jurisdiction give a damn?
@Sarahp
It is not a matter of means, it is a Fools Errand.
@Sarahp I find it fascinating that someone who wrote "protocols not platforms" is now so deep inside the BlueSky fake federation stuff that he loses site of his own goal.
@Sarahp This is such a nonsensical law. I think someone should go to court seeking for all email providers to implement the age check too.
(yes, I am comparing the #fediverse with #email)
@Sarahp How would they fine someone outside of their state anyway?
@Sarahp i would say its sorta not applicable here because of the ability for communities to host their own servers. Nothing stops a group for hosting kid-friendly mastodon instances which are isolated and age-verified
@Sarahp I intend to be fully-compliant: I have full documentation on every user of my instance regarding their age.
... in my basement, no less!
(Please ignore that I only have one user).
@Sarahp While Mastodon the company cannot do this (at least not for the users of instances it doesn't control), I don't see how individual Mastodon instances are different from BlueSky in this regard. Instances can either do what BlueSky did and block Mississippi, or actually perform age verification. The major practical difference lies with enforcement: it would be difficult to enforce it against all Mastodon instances, and if it is only enforced against some instances, the users will just migrate to other instances. So, even if Mastodon instances are technically required to comply, the requirement won't be very effective in practice.
@Sarahp Oh but it could have the means. I mean, one could do age verification in a privacy preserving way and in a decentralized network. One would just need to verify a cryptographic token sent by the user device.
The real issue that politricks want people to finance these age verification procedures. Well, no. Policy makers should have created a budget line to pay for a public infrastructure financed by the gov to deliver these age proofs.
@Sarahp Sensible Mastodon I say. I nearly parted company with Bluesky about this.
@mastodonmigration @Sarahp
i dont think either osa or mississippi's laws have exceptions for social media platforms that dont store personal data however
@laurenshof @mastodonmigration @Sarahp I'm in neither osa or Mississippi's jurisdiction, why should I have to comply to their laws? They're free to block the entire internet and wall themselves off if they want but it's a beyond ridiculous request that sites in other countries/states comply with their bullshit law, the ONLY reason you'd comply is if you had a business presence there and wanted to maintain it.
@laurenshof @Sarahp
Understood. But clearly staking out a legal distinction. The law will be contested on many bases. It is interesting that one argument is that if you are not retaining personal data you are not in the same category as those who do.
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