Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform alternative to Twitter, recently declared it impossible for them to adhere to some age verification laws now being rolled out. In a recent interview, Eugen Rochko, founder and CEO of the platform, emphasized the autonomy of various jurisdictions in the fediverse. He was adamant, “No one can vote for the fediverse to ban Mississippi.”
Mastodon is developed and maintained by Mastodon gGmbH, a community-funded nonprofit organization. While the platform specifies a minimum age of 16 for users to sign up, it does not possess the means to enforce age verification across its services. This leaves the responsibility largely on individual server operators, who may face significant penalties for noncompliance with emerging laws.
These laws are creating serious implications. Mike Masnick, board member of Bluesky and a long time journalist, raised concerns about the law’s implications. He wondered why individual Mastodon servers wouldn’t be subjected to those same large penalties. That’s because they could be fined $10,000 per user for noncompliance with age verification regulations. His query underscores the legal threats that face the operators of the Mastodon servers, or “instances,” that make up the broader Mastodon network.
In a discussion online about these challenges, Rochko said, “And this is why real decentralization is important. His comments underscore the advantages of Mastodon’s decentralized approach, which encourages varied governance. In contrast to creating statewide provisions for universal compliance, this same structure makes it difficult to enforce compliance.
Mastodon gGmbH did not respond to multiple requests for comment. We’re very interested to hear how they plan to assist server operators in complying with the new rules. The platform has claimed that it cannot, at present, provide direct assistance to this expanded group of operators. In addition, they’re not able to support operations.
Sarah Perez, techcrunch reporter since August 2011, has provided coverage of the intersection between technology and social media. She developed specialized expertise in information technology through her work in several sectors, including banking, retail, and software. Prior to coming on board at TechCrunch, she blogged for over three years at ReadWriteWeb. To follow up on or send tips about her work, email her securely at sarahp@techcrunch.com. You can send an encrypted Signal message to me at sarahperez.01.
