Bluesky, an open social network, is not going to work where it is required to collect personal data of users

Bluesky, a social network operating on the open AT Protocol, has made an official statement indicating that it is not going to resume operations in Mississippi (USA). This state has enacted a law requiring Internet resources to obtain user documents to confirm their age and imposing high fines if users are able to circumvent the verification. If the situation remains unchanged, this social network will remain inaccessible to users from this state. Potentially, any country or state that adopts similar laws could also be blocked. The conflict developed in several stages.

You have to prove your age

Under the great slogan of protecting minors on the Internet, many countries have introduced mandatory age verification for website visitors. Not just the "Yes, I am 18" button, but sending an identity document or registering through a service that has more or less reliable age data (for example, Facebook). Recently, authorities in some countries have begun to extend these laws not only to websites containing adult content, but to any website on the Internet.

The authorities of the US state of Mississippi have ruled that age confirmation is required only by sending an identity document, and if a person is under 18, they must send parental consent. If a violation is detected, the service owner will have to pay a fine of $10,000 for each violation.

Age verification is quite common in the US. In addition to selling alcohol and cigarettes, ID cards are asked for when visiting a nightclub or cinema. Therefore, the business of making fake ID cards has flourished in the country. Fish look for deeper waters, and people look for better ones, so the stricter the law, the more people will want to break it.

Bluesky's position

The social network simply blocked access to its service from the state of Mississippi. Subsequently, a detailed communiqué was released that shed light on the company's position. It claims that Bluesky has developed a clear system of access to adult content that prevents underage users from seeing sensitive content. As a small non-profit organisation, Bluesky is unable to manually verify all users. In addition, the law imposes the need to obtain and store the personal data of users across the state. The platform's team considers this decision to be a violation of freedoms and the first step towards online identification and surveillance.

Currently, they are trying to challenge the overly harsh law, but it is not known whether these attempts will be successful.

Not just Mississippi

Tightening control has been going on for a long time. Even if we don't take into account totalitarian countries like China or Russia, only a month ago there was a fuss about new age verification rules in the UK. Then the anonymous forum 4chan asked the Trump administration to protect them from foreign government harassment, and Wikipedia was going to restrict some of the functions on Foggy Albion. It is not clear how 4chan is going to operate in Mississippi now.

What's next.

It is hard not to notice that every year the Internet is being controlled more and more. Its carefree, anonymous days are probably a thing of the past. Fighting criminals and protecting minors is all well and good, but we are not seeing fewer online criminals or an increase in the detection of paedophiles. Instead, we see oppression of dissidents and even the introduction of digital ratings in totalitarian countries, as well as numerous thefts of personal data from online databases. Well, we will closely monitor the development of this situation.