Mastodon Says It Doesn't 'Have the Means' To Comply With Age Verification Laws (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0178934136
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/29/2131208/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/
> The statement follows a lively back-and-forth conversation [2]earlier this week between Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko and Bluesky board member and journalist Mike Masnick. In the conversation, published on their respective social networks, Rochko claimed, "there is nobody that can decide for the fediverse to block Mississippi." (The Fediverse is the decentralized social network that includes Mastodon and other services, and is powered by the ActivityPub protocol.) "And this is why real decentralization matters," said Rochko.
>
> Masnick pushed back, questioning why Mastodon's individual servers, like the one Rochko runs at mastodon.social, would not also be subject to the same $10,000 per user fines for noncompliance with the law. On Friday, however, the nonprofit shared a statement with TechCrunch to clarify its position, saying that while Mastodon's own servers specify a minimum age of 16 to sign up for its services, it does not "have the means to apply age verification" to its services. That is, the Mastodon software doesn't support it. The Mastodon 4.4 release in July 2025 added the ability to specify a minimum age for sign-up and other legal features for handling terms of service, partly in response to increased regulation around these areas. The new feature allows server administrators to check users' ages during sign-up, but the age-check data is not stored. That means individual server owners have to decide for themselves if they believe an age verification component is a necessary addition.
>
> The nonprofit says Mastodon is currently unable to provide "direct or operational assistance" to the broader set of Mastodon server operators. Instead, it encourages owners of Mastodon and other Fediverse servers to make use of resources available online, such as the [3]IFTAS library , which provides trust and safety support for volunteer social network moderators. The nonprofit also advises server admins to observe the laws of the jurisdictions where they are located and operate. Mastodon notes that it's "not tracking, or able to comment on, the policies and operations of individual servers that run Mastodon."
Bluesky echoed those comments in a [4]blog post last Friday, saying the company [5]doesn't have the resources to make the substantial technical changes this type of law would require.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/
[2] https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115086749353290422
[3] https://connect.iftas.org/library/
[4] https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-22-2025-mississippi-hb1126
[5] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/22/2327213/bluesky-blocks-service-in-mississippi-over-age-assurance-law
Computer trespass and identity fraud (Score:2)
Some state needs to pass a law to enforce unauthorized computer access/computer trespass against people who fraudulently lie about their ages to gain access to a website. Websites should put up 'No minors allowed' and if a minor ignores that, there should be a law to penalize the minor/parents for trespass or unlawful computer access.
Re: (Score:2)
That's already a law federally. CFAA.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably not constitutional. It got past the first step of the Supreme Court challenge, [1]but that's probably because of opposing lawyer incompetence [cnn.com]:
> Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative wing, wrote a brief concurrence asserting that the Mississippi law is “likely unconstitutional” but said that the internet companies who sued had not “sufficiently demonstrated” that they would be harmed by a temporary order in favor of the state.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/14/politics/supreme-court-netchoice-mississippi-age-verification
Re: easy (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s not going to fly. The law is telling them to change their software or get the fuck out. Saying âoeour software doesnâ(TM)t support itâ wonâ(TM)t get you anywhere. No oneâ(TM)s software supported it, but they changed their software because of the law, thatâ(TM)s the point.
ultimately govt regulation gets you (Score:2)
This reminds me of the early days of wifi when the idea was that everyone should just share their wifi with everyone else. You could provision guest wifi or a shared wifi ssid on your local router.
In the end that all failed because the govt could come after your for some stranger using your wifi to do something illegal.
So in the end it all becomes centralized and managed by big companies that have the resources to comply with all the different regulations and we pay the cost of all the employees that have
Re: (Score:2)
> This reminds me of the early days of wifi when the idea was that everyone should just share their wifi with everyone else. You could provision guest wifi or a shared wifi ssid on your local router.
It failed because WiFi routers started coming with passwords pre-installed.
For me personally, I eventually added a password because people watching movies on my WiFi was eroding my ping time in online games.
Jurisdictional question. (Score:2)
This is where we really ought to look into the state of jurisdiction regarding businesses who are not located in a state, do not have offices in a state and do not target users in that state. This has come up before when it comes to taxes and other state laws, and I'm pretty sure it's ended up with binding rulings at the Federal Appeals Court level if not the Supreme Court level.
It made perfect sense to me the first time.. (Score:2)
Mastodon is decentralized. Please someone post the definition of what decentralized is???
This should be the new internet (Score:2)
Decentralized everything. Might even be our only hope of fighting these and upcoming draconian laws. Mastodon and Nostr can't be stopped, people should use them more and developers should build on them. I've already seen pretty amazing web apps that use Nostr accounts for authorization. You can even fund this with decentralized money in the form of bitcoin
Re: (Score:2)
> Go back to [1]making porn [xhamster.com], rsilvergun.
> The guys in the channel have VERIFIED that's you in the video.
> What do you have to say about yourself now?
Do you enjoy watching gay porn?
[1] https://xhamster.com/videos/give-me-your-piss-and-fuck-my-throat-until-you-cum-on-my-face-xhYQmc9
Re: (Score:2)
> The courts have NO power to order the president around.
So Biden DID have the authority to forgive student loans.