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Fuckass age verification
Feb. 16th, 2026 06:54 pmJust this evening, when I went to check this site, I got a weird error page, telling me that I was being geoblocked due to age verification laws in Mississippi.
I was using Dreamwidth earlier today without any issue, and I was definitely not in Mississippi. Multiple reloads later, and I was still geoblocked. It became obvious I'd have to download a VPN to get on here again.
I went with Proton VPN due to how often it appears in Best VPN lists (usually as something like, "Best Free VPN"). My relief was palpable when I was able to access the site again. The server randomly chosen for me was in the U.S., so I was a little worried nothing would change, but it must have been far enough from Mississippi to not be an issue.
I was concerned about the privacy implications prior (because you KNOW these companies that collect ID scans don't provide this service out of the goodness of their hearts). But it hadn't occurred to me how prohibitively expensive age verification would be for smaller sites that run on donations.
These fuckass age verification laws had better not come for my state.
I was using Dreamwidth earlier today without any issue, and I was definitely not in Mississippi. Multiple reloads later, and I was still geoblocked. It became obvious I'd have to download a VPN to get on here again.
I went with Proton VPN due to how often it appears in Best VPN lists (usually as something like, "Best Free VPN"). My relief was palpable when I was able to access the site again. The server randomly chosen for me was in the U.S., so I was a little worried nothing would change, but it must have been far enough from Mississippi to not be an issue.
I was concerned about the privacy implications prior (because you KNOW these companies that collect ID scans don't provide this service out of the goodness of their hearts). But it hadn't occurred to me how prohibitively expensive age verification would be for smaller sites that run on donations.
These fuckass age verification laws had better not come for my state.
