If only there was some form of microblogging social media where it wasn't a single company that owned all the servers, but instead it was some kind of... I dunno, confederation of servers that all used the same protocol. Then if there's some dumb local law, locals could run their own servers, or find someone brave enough to defy the dumb law, or who knows what. Without that a single platform decides that the dumb local law is dangerous to their business and refuses to serve those users then those users have no options.
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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Bluesky already uses content addressing and federation.
People in Mississippi can currently visit 3rd party appviews (the user facing indexing webview/API server) like zeppelin.social, and you can self host your account server easily (PDS server).
I'm not for bluesky but more sites doing this will help change the law.
No it won't. More sites doing this will keep the citizens of Mississippi shut off from the rest of the world.
Pornhub shutting off access to Texas didn't change any laws, and it didn't keep other states from passing the same laws.
It needs to be a site everyone 'needs'
It hasn't changed them yet.
And it only isolates the non-VPN-using people of these states. Their kids/grandkids have long since figured out how to bypass these idiotic restrictions.
VPN not required, there are enough sites ignoring the laws that we have no need to care.
And they should continue to do so.
Idiots are falling for the trap. This is what they want! Porn was just a bullshit pretense.
The Mississippi law in question actually requires age verification for social media sites, not porn.
The supreme court has chosen not to pause the law going into effect until it gets onto their docket, but they've signaled that they think it's likely unconstitutional. I'm not going to get into how weird that is, but that's where we are right now. For the time being the law stands until it's struck down, if that's what happens.
It's a case that has two opposing legal frameworks: first amendment rights, and the reduced rights afforded to minors. It will be an interesting one that, if the Mississippi law is upheld it will have some REALLY significant downstream effects in law as relates to the internet.
Interesting framing "reduced rights". I think some laws should reduce what minors can or must do - like laws preventing marriage or work of minors, for their own benefit - compulsory elementary education for one.
Do you think that preventing children (idk what age Mississippi set for their law) from accessing social media is wrong? (And I don't mean unlawful, specifically unconstitutional.)
The framing I used is me trying to summarize in simplified terms for folks who aren't particularly legally savvy. In the USA minors have a more limited set of rights than adults (medical agency is a really solid and easily understood example for most people), which it sounds like you already know (I'm speaking for the crowd).
To answer your question, I'm really not sure. I think social media is 90%+ toxic and has overall been awful for society, and it's terrible for children. Absolutely awful for their development and self esteem. But that doesn't mean I think that preventing them from accessing social media is correct either. Even if I did, Mississippi's law is a garbage and completely ineffective way to do it and I wouldn't support the law as it stands even if I was dead set that kids shouldn't be on social media at all.
Edit: I didn't answer your question thoroughly. I'm not sure if it's unconstitutional to bar children from participating in social media. As I stated, I think it's harmful in general as it exists today. 2nd amendment is a constitutional right, but we don't allow 12 year olds to purchase guns, so there's plainly lines that we draw with minors. Does restricting access infringe on 1st amendment rights? Sure, but is there enough harm from social media access to minors that it's justifiable to find it constitutional to bar it? I honestly don't even know if there's a credible body of research to say for sure, and my anecdotal opinion totally doesn't matter. We need good evidence and I'm not sure if that exists.
Hey thanks for engaging with me.
I think we are aligned with our views on the topic, including the Missisipi solution being generally bad.
Being a dad I am beginning the struggle for well being of a soon-to-be a social media user, and it scares me as hell.
My conviction is to be present, guiding and hoping to teach enough before they stop listening to me.
Yeah, good conversation.
If you like podcasts I really think the Lawfare Podcast (lefties), Advisory Opinions (righties) and Divided Arguments (not sure how they lean, they're more bland, but it's still good, with less frequent releases) are my go-tos for legit, subject-matter expert driven long form legal/court commentary.
TLP has a much wider range than the other two. Their focus is generally in National Security related matters so you'll get stuff about foreign policy, three-letter agencies, what's up with Trump this week, interviews about specific topics, AI, etc.
AO really only talks about current court cases in district courts or supreme court cases. Also have some stuff for advice for legal students periodically, I skip those because I ain't trying to be a dang lawyer, but I just think it's REALLY important to know what's going on in the courts
DA is like, the most boring. But it's great legal review.
Good luck navigating teens on the Internet! Keep hammering home safety, privacy, you can NEVER take back something you post, and that they're only seeing their friend's highlight reels so try not to compare how they feel about their life with what they're seeing on other's posts.
And here we start. It’s only going to get worse folks. Hold onto your Fediverse!
Technically bsky is a federated platform, and part of the fediverse. You can host your own instance (I do, although I don't really use it)
Yeah, but when people refer to BlueSky without specifying that, it’s the core server they’re referring to. When that goes down, I’d be surprised if that platform outlasted Mastodon.
fair, and I agree. wish more people were actually on activitypub. ATproto is fine but not ideal imho
Technically bsky is a federated platform
By the strictest definition of "technically", perhaps, but not in any meaningful sense is it actually federated.
You can easily run your own copy of everything but the PLC server, but if you use DID:Web account types you're not dependent on that either.
Even the relay is cheap to run now. $34 a month for A FULL RELAY is less than what it costs to run a large Mastodon server
https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lo7a2a4qxg2l
Hosting your own account with your own PDS server is simple.
Running your own feeds and moderation labelers isn't even possible in Mastodon.