Mastodon Claims Inability to Comply with Age Verification Laws

Mastodon's Response to Mississippi Age Verification Law

The decentralized social network, Mastodon, has announced its inability to adhere to Mississippi’s recently enacted age verification law. This mirrors a similar decision made by competitor Bluesky, which also withdrew its services from the state due to compliance challenges.

Challenges in Implementing Age Verification

Mastodon, operating as a social nonprofit, explains that its core design prevents effective enforcement of the legislation. A key factor is the platform’s lack of user tracking mechanisms, making age confirmation difficult.

Furthermore, the organization expresses reluctance towards employing IP address-based restrictions, citing potential unfairness to users who are traveling.

Discussion Between Founders

This announcement follows a public exchange between Mastodon founder and CEO, Eugen Rochko, and Bluesky board member, Mike Masnick. The conversation, shared on their respective platforms, saw Rochko asserting that no single entity could mandate age verification across the entire Fediverse.

Rochko emphasized the importance of genuine decentralization in this context.

Concerns Regarding Individual Server Liability

Masnick countered this claim, questioning whether individual Mastodon servers, such as Rochko’s mastodon.social instance, would be exempt from the $10,000 per user fines associated with non-compliance.

Initial requests for comment from Mastodon gGmbH, the nonprofit organization supporting the platform, went unanswered.

Clarification of Mastodon’s Position

However, on Friday, the nonprofit issued a statement to TechCrunch, clarifying its stance. While Mastodon’s servers currently require a minimum age of 16 for registration, the platform lacks the technical capacity to implement comprehensive age verification.

Software Limitations and Future Updates

The Mastodon software itself does not currently support age verification processes. The July 2025 release of Mastodon 4.4 introduced features for setting minimum age requirements and managing terms of service, responding to growing regulatory pressures.

This new functionality allows server administrators to request age confirmation during sign-up, but crucially, this data is not retained.

Server Administrator Discretion

Consequently, individual server owners must independently determine whether to integrate age verification measures.

Support for Server Operators

The nonprofit states that it is presently unable to offer “direct or operational assistance” to the wider community of Mastodon server operators.

Instead, it recommends utilizing publicly available resources like the IFTAS library, which provides trust and safety tools for volunteer moderators.

Mastodon also advises server administrators to comply with the laws of their respective jurisdictions.

Decentralized Policies and User Choice

Mastodon clarifies that it does not monitor or comment on the policies of individual servers running its software.

The statement concludes by highlighting that Mastodon was founded to enable social media platforms independent of U.S. regulations, allowing users to select servers aligned with their preferred policies.