Missouri, Ohio become latest states to impose age checks for adult content online

The U.S. continues to see the spread of online safety legislation that comes with rules requiring age verification for adult content.

In Missouri, the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act is scheduled to take effect on November 30, 2025. KCTV5 says that, under the law, sites hosting pornographic content must ask users to prove their age through a method such as biometric facial age estimation. It will apply to commercial websites and platforms on which at least one third of the content could be classified as sexually explicit.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says the new law will help hold corporations accountable, reduce human trafficking, and help “ensure that minors are shielded from dangerous, sexually explicit material.”

“If these companies want to profit off explicit material in Missouri, they will not get a free pass. They must prove their users are adults or they will be shut out of our state.”

Ohio’s age assurance law is set to come into effect on September 30, as part of HB 96, the state appropriations bill. A brief from the Columbus Dispatch says the effort to pass the law represents the latest in a series of attempts – all of which have failed in the past.

The American Civil Liberties Union objects to the present bill, calling it a “barrier to constitutionally protected speech.” A key issue for the ACLU is what it says is the subjective or ambiguous nature of the phrase “harmful to juveniles.”

Ohio’s age verification law makes 25 states that have adopted similar measures. Many of these hinge on similar language around what is “harmful to children.”

Bluesky says Mississippi law makes operations impossible

Does Bluesky qualify as a threat to kids? The social media platform modeled on Twitter has been caught up in the debate, arguing that Mississippi’s age law requiring it to restrict access to the site for unverified users is unfeasible.

“In the UK, we complied with a new law that requires platforms to restrict children from accessing adult content,” says a statement from Bluesky. “In Mississippi, the law requires us to restrict access to the site for every unverified user. To implement this change, we would have had to invest substantial resources in a solution that we believe limits free speech and disproportionately harms smaller platforms. We chose not to offer our service there at this time while legal challenges continue.”

The statement notes that South Dakota and Wyoming have also passed online safety laws that apply to social platforms, but have followed the model of the UK’s Online Safety Act. “So, as we did in the UK, we’ll enable Kids Web Services’ (KWS) age verification solution for users in these states. Through KWS, Bluesky users in South Dakota and Wyoming can choose from multiple methods to verify their age.”

Kids Web Services is a subsidiary of Epic Games. KWS bundles together Yoti’s facial age estimation with other methods of age assurance, including age verification with payment card checks or ID card scans.

“We believe this approach currently strikes the right balance,” the statement says. “Bluesky will remain available to users in these states, and we will not need to restrict the app for everyone.”

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  Bluesky  |  digital identity  |  facial age estimation (FAE)  |  Mississippi  |  Missouri  |  Ohio  |  South Dakota  |  United States  |  Wyoming