Social media platform Bluesky has cut off users in Mississippi, citing concerns over privacy, free speech, and compliance costs tied to a new state age verification law.

The law, House Bill 1126, requires all social media platforms to verify the age of every user and obtain parental consent before granting accounts to anyone under 18. Penalties for violations can reach up to $10,000 per user.

Bluesky announced Friday that it would block all users accessing its service from Mississippi IP addresses rather than comply.

“The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site — or risk massive fines,” the company said in a statement.

The platform argued that the law would force it to identify and track which users are children, something it does not do elsewhere, and that building such systems would “require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers.”

The move came after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block enforcement of the law while a lawsuit proceeds. The trade group NetChoice, which represents companies including Meta, Google, X, and Reddit, has challenged the statute, arguing it violates the First Amendment.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concurring with the Court’s decision not to issue an emergency stay, wrote that NetChoice was likely to succeed on the merits of its constitutional claims but had not shown that the law must be halted immediately.

Mississippi’s law, named the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, was passed in 2024 following the death of a Mississippi teenager who died by suicide after an online predator threatened to blackmail him. State officials, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch, have defended the measure as necessary to protect children from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion and more.”

Similar laws have been adopted in other Republican-led states. In some cases, adult content platforms like Pornhub have chosen to block access entirely rather than implement broad verification systems. Bluesky’s decision mirrors that approach, but it is the first major non-adult platform to cut off a state over such requirements.

Bluesky noted it already complies with other digital safety regimes, such as the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, where age checks are applied only to certain content or features. Mississippi’s law, by contrast, mandates full verification before anyone can access the service.

Bluesky’s block highlights the tension between child protection laws and the burdens they impose on smaller platforms. Critics argue the requirements risk entrenching major tech companies, which can afford to build complex compliance systems, while forcing startups and challengers offline.

“This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users,” Bluesky said.