If you live in Mississippi, you may have noticed that you are no longer able to log into your Bluesky or Dreamwidth accounts from within the state. That’s because, in a chilling early warning sign for the U.S., both social platforms decided to block all users in Mississippi from their services rather than risk hefty fines under the state’s oppressive age verification mandate.
  • panda_abyss@lemmy.caEnglish
    15·
    4 days ago

    I hate age verification

    Its both the end of the internet and the installation of a surveillance state beyond the imagination of even 1984.

    • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      4 days ago

      They don’t have to, the legal risks alone will discourage businesses from getting involved. Should something manage to get big enough despite that they’ll go after the payment processors to strangle them that way. They don’t care about every little site, they just want to make sure they’ve got their thumb on the 99% of them that most people actually use.

    • scintilla@crust.piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      4 days ago

      I know a few of the big instances are already blocking uk IPs. Once the first instance gets sued I imagine that the rest will follow quickly.

        • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
          5·
          4 days ago

          Yes, it took about 2 years after Lemmy’s big boost from the reddit exodus before governments and big tech found an effective way to shut down the Fediverse.