Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

[denise]

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Comments

[makz]

Thanks as always for fighting the good fight. I look forward to the point at which these restrictions are no longer necessary.

[denise]

God, me too. I really do believe we're going to win it! Everything is on our side! But it's gonna suck in the meantime, sigh.

[princessofgeeks]

Thank you for doing your best to keep the internet anonymous.

[denise]

It is a cause near and dear to my heart! Privacy has been one of our core values since we started Dreamwidth, and we are never giving up the fight.

[pangolin20]

That sucks for teens in Tennessee, but I'm happy to see that the restrictions aren't nearly as bad there as I thought they might be once you didn't get the temporary injuction. Best of luck to all those affected and to the Dreamwidth team, and may this be resolved soon!

[denise]

Yeah, the parental permission and parental control parts of the law suck, but it at least doesn't specify how you have to verify a user's age and doesn't have any of the content restrictions that the Mississippi law does, so it's slightly less awful. Still awful! Just slightly less awful. Sigh. I feel absolutely horrible for all the teenagers who are using social media for community and support because they can't find it locally.

[blue_ant]

Thank for continuing to fight! These battles are not just for the states involved, but for all of us.

Thank you again!

[juan_gandhi]

Thank you so much for what you do.

[havocthecat]

Ugh, Tennessee too? Thanks for the explanation! Again! But sorry that it was needed. As I am certain you are.

[denise]

There are so many states passing these laws :/ I need to update our map of states we have helped to sue! (Also my wife got me a scratch off map of the US for "states I have sued" instead of "states I have visited" and I need to actually scratch it off, heh.)

[paserbyp]

Fight!

[weird]

What happens if those under 18’s from Tennessee lie during account sign up? Would you be penalised? So many variables, what a mess 😩

[denise]

It is, unfortunately, the only method we have available to us! We can't afford access to a geolocation service that makes the geolocation information available at the time of registration to determine if a user is covered, much less afford to build the parental permission and supervision system TN wants us to build :/

[westiec]

Thank you for fighting these attacks on our freedom to internet!

[extrapenguin]

Thank you for fighting the good fight!

[aldanise]

Thank you for fighting *and* for trying to use the least onerous methods of compliance you have access to! It’s so frustrating that US appeals/supreme courts are erring on the side of letting unconstitutional laws go into effect, rather than postponing potentially constitutional ones.

[lb_lee]

Man, I remember being a queer teen growing up in the South and being desperately paranoid about being caught looking at "the wrong thing" on the Internet, on account of a real violent family. Thanks a lot, dirtbags, for making it harder for kids like I used to be!

[denise]

Right!? I wish like hell I'd had the internet as a deeply isolated kid!

[musyc]

Thank you for your continued efforts! Real gut punch that DW has to take these steps, but the fight goes on.

[kitarella_imagines]

Thanks again for all that you do keeping Dreamwidth such a lovely site.

MORE Trouble?

[dialecticdreamer]

My heart goes out to queer, disabled, and otherwise isolated teens EVERYWHERE. I just refuse to sacrifice the privacy of the whole WORLD under the thin guise of "protecting minors".

Thank you to everyone who fights, whether that's by speaking up (or remaining creatively silent), offering paid time to a random person, or joining in more direct political discourse like petitions and calls to the representatives in those states as well as your own.

Thank you to every member of the staff on Dreamwidth, and the team of lawyers fighting this invasion of privacy far more directly.

I hope that the GOOD news will be posted quickly.

[mindways]

Thank you for fighting the many fights, and for keeping us updated when you get the chance! [breaks out the pompoms to cheer for y'all and the attorneys]

[bikergeek]

I don't live in Mississippi (thankfully!) but thank you for fighting this.

[kradeelav]

you and the team's transparency, knowledge, and integrity remained unmatched; thank you as always. I've done everything I know to help fight these and similar art-restriction bills (membership with the EFF, CBLD, FSC for starters) among other methods, but please let us know if there's less obvious ways.

[cozymacabre]

I'm sorry you're having to spend time fighting this and I appreciate the effort you're all putting in. ☆ミ

[nzvc]

Predictable.

[house_wren]

Thank you!

[china_shop]

Thank you! <3 <3 <3

[shoujocupid]

thanks for fighting! we're here and in your corner (plus the vpn method works!)

[facethestrange]

*cheering you on so much* ♡ Thank you!

[starfleetbrat]

Out of curiosity, will DW be affected by the social media ban for under 16s in Australia? It takes effect in December. From what I understand DW meets the criteria for being a social media platform in the government's eyes, but I don't know if DW is on their radar.

There is a fact sheet here in case anyone is interested:
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/social-media-minimum-age-and-age-assurance-trial-fact-sheet-july-2025.pdf

[skulltaffy]

Asked that last post, actually! tl;dr probably not, not enough Aussie users to trip the flags (and if problems arise, there's ways to handle it). But I doubt the Australian government knows or cares about DW - they've been pretty clear that they want a slice of the Facebook and YouTube pie, not so much older forum-style platforms.

(That being said, I've got a VPN prepped and ready just in case.)