(I don't really use Dreamwidth, but I posted this there first and decided to x-post(

Age verification hit Texas and you need to send personal info to use Bluesky. My mom told me she gave her SSN digits, and it made me want to burst a blood vessel. Even if she's only a lurker, a red state government now knows what kind of content you're looking at and cosigning.

Anyway... there's ways to bypass this without VPN. Your account is technically on AT Protocol, you can use another site with your Bluesky login info and use it just fine.

https://deer.social/ (currently unmaintained for a year, but I use it for the cute url)
https://witchsky.app/
https://blacksky.app/ (I don't recommend non-black people make an account, but it should be fine to use if nothing else works)
https://klearsky.pages.dev/

Bsky age verification workarounds: https://gist.github.com/mary-ext/6e27b24a83838202908808ad528b3318

Blog post introducing a redirector addon for converting Bsky urls to Witchsky (etc) https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/

Here's Phosphorshy's thread of this information and more: https://deer.social/profile/did:plc:q6y32yhubqdilb6rgajducul/post/3mqb24lmixc2g

More importantly, please support legislation and web privacy laws. We can use VPNs and work arounds, but really shouldn't have to.

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