Important announcement: Please see the special notice at Hattiesburg_Memory:HB1126
Hattiesburg Memory:HB1126
HB 1126, also known as the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, was signed by Governor Tate Reeves on April 30, 2024, and went into effect on July 1, 2024. The law requires websites that allows users to "create or post content that can be viewed by other users" to do things like:
- Store the ages of every user, even those 18 years old and older
- Require parental consent before allowing anyone under the age of 18 to create an account
A federal court then issued a preliminary injunction as part of a lawsuit by NetChoice (Netchoice, LLC v. Fitch). However, if the law does go into effect, the Hattiesburg Memory Wiki will be forced to change the way it operates. Here's what this means:
- User account creation will be disabled
- Existing accounts will be set to read-only
This is extremely unfortunate, since the whole point of a "wiki" is to allow anyone to be able to easily add and update content. But this law makes it impossible.
We are looking for ways to allow the Wiki to continue operating as an actual wiki should the law go into effect.
Read the text of the law here: https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2024/pdf/history/HB/HB1126.xml