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Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

theregister.com

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Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#121

Post by pessimizer »

haunter wrote: post #115
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK is a police state. No it isn’t.

It's a nanny state which is even worse

It's a nanny state with the police arresting and jailing people for tweets. It's a police state, but "we" like to identify police states with Russians, Chinese, and Iranians, or whoever the state's enemy is at the moment.

When police show up to your door and ask you to apologize to people for causing distress, and to consider not speaking from now on, you live in a police state. When you have banned political parties and organizations that trigger the mass arrests of peaceful protestors, you live in a police state. People who are comfortable with what is being suppressed never think of their country as a police state. At least until something happens to them or someone they care about, when they suddenly become "activists."

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#122

Post by quercusa »

fusslo wrote: post #67

One interesting bit is that the lawyer, RONALD D. COLEMAN is (or at least was) a youtube lawyer. He'd pop into 'law streams' from time to time to talk about cases and discuss newsworthy events out of the courts. He is as if New Jersey was transmuted into a man (I say that with great affection). I want to say, and I could be wrong, I became familiar with his name during the Rittenhouse trial. Or maybe the couple high…

Coleman won the 'Slants' case at SCOTUS, so he's the real thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matal_v._Tam

https://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/legal-publications-ron...

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#123

Post by pessimizer »

foldr wrote: post #79
linuxftw wrote: post #41

Many people are saying this is symbolic and cannot be enforced. Unfortunately, that's just not true. Look at what happened to the founder of Telegram. Some jurisdiction decides you're violating their laws, all you need to do is catch a connecting flight or take a vacation on their soil or a place that will eagerly extradite, and you're a political prisoner. What happens if one of the officers of 4Chan or Gab is on a…

Enforcing bad legislation that was enacted through the democratic process doesn’t make a country a police state. It’s just the rule of law. That has always included the enforcement of bad laws as well as good ones.

> the democratic process

There's no such thing. There are many different processes that some people consider democratic and others don't. But "democratic" has no other meaning than rule by the governed. It is not a description of a specific political process. Especially one that bans leading opposition candidates, which is clearly as undemocratic as anything that can occur in government. If a population wants to vote in somebody who is currently in prison for crimes they are obviously guilty of, preventing them from doing it is a direct repudiation of democracy.

Even killing opposition candidates is marginally more democratic, because at least that only lasts for an instant. Saying that people cannot vote for the government of their choice is a restriction on the governed, not a restriction on people who want to govern.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#124

Post by myne_throwaway »

gnfargbl wrote: post #73
lm28469 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that they banned discussing suicide online I'm sure the number of suicides will plummet.

You know, I'd like to actually know the answer to the question you're posing there. Does discussing suicide increase the overall rate, is it neutral -- or does it even decrease it? The Samaritans are usually regarded as a net public benefit, though they tend not to encourage people to go through with it, whereas the Wikipedia link suggests that the users of that forum have some kind of fetish for it. I would also exp…

Having perused the site a number of times, I wouldn't say many people there "have a fetish for it". You're a million times more likely to be told to kill yourself on 4chan than on SS.

SS simply says a) suicide should be your choice, b) dehumanizing people for having suicidal thoughts is bad. Sadly these opinions are so far outside the overton window that suicidal people end up having no choice but to discuss their problems with other suicidal people - likely not a good basis for improvement but the human is a social animal so I'll take it over nothing.

And although SS provides info on how you can kill yourself, it also tells you how you can't kill yourself, and that has apparently saved me from permanent liver damage. So at least for me it has been objectively beneficial - more so than the brainless repetition of "consult a professional" which seems to be the gold standard for suicide prevention these days.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#125

Post by jen20 »

morkalork wrote: post #97
aunty_helen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan are the “think of the children” bad guys to make an example out of. This isn’t a play to get money or 4chan to comply, it’s a play to increase the strength of their legislation. So expect stronger blocking etc to be on the cards to prevent foreign entities from avoiding the law.

"They won't comply so these new restrictions are for your own good, citizen"

Subject, surely?

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#126

Post by laughing_man »

foldr wrote: post #80
alphazard wrote: post #74

What do they seek to accomplish here? There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests. No UK bureaucrats are going to make a career out of this. Going after a company that can defend itself and can't be intimidated, will prevent them from bluffing successfully against smaller companies, who could realistically be intimidated. If I were working at Ofcom, I would stay away fro…

I think you’re overanalyzing it. They’re just enforcing the law. You and I may agree that it’s a bad law, but that doesn’t mean that the people in charge of enforcing it necessarily have complex and sinister motives.

You're underestimating how much thought governments put into things. Bureaucrats wouldn't be showcasing their own impotence with no reason.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#127

Post by jen20 »

storus wrote: post #108
spookie wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really fail to see the difference between this and Russia's fine.

If your flight is redirected due to weather/etc. to some British commonwealth country, then you might be grabbed upon landing. Or if you are a really big fish, your plane might be forced to land on a crown-controlled land.

And this is different exactly how to Belarus (backed by Russian power) [1]?

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-forces-vilnius-...

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#128

Post by constantius »

nadermx wrote: post #9

4chan is fighting them as well. https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/when-trolls-take-on-tyra...

Thanks for posting, an insightful overview of the ramifications of the Online Safety Act on online freedoms.

> Perhaps most troubling, the UK’s approach sets a dangerous precedent for global internet regulation. If every country can claim jurisdiction over any website accessible within its borders, the internet becomes subject to the most restrictive speech laws anywhere in the world.

Another interesting point is that the UK could just ban the websites it finds objectionable, but that'd expose them as a censor, so instead the strategy is to basically force those websites to withdraw from the market voluntarily (or comply), which is a much less revolting story to sell to its population.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#129

Post by jen20 »

observationist wrote: post #23
gadders wrote: post #21

I think the end state of this will be when Trump links prosecutions like this to tariff deals, and Kier Starmer will have to choose between mean words on the internet or further damage to an economy in already bad shape.

Starmer doesn't have very long, and he seems to be trying to accelerate his relocation out of government.

Starmer has longer than Trump all things being equal - he doesn't even need to call an election until July 5th 2029. He also has a massive majority, making a government collapse by other means highly unlikely.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#130

Post by Aloisius »

SoftTalker wrote: post #116
p10jkle wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London is the third most visited city and Heathrow is the second most popular airport by international visitors. The prospect of being arrested upon arrival there might be a little annoying.

Even if you don't intend to ever set foot in the UK you could find yourself there unintentionally, if your airline needs to make an unplanned diversion. So you basically have to forego any European air travel.

I wouldn't go that far. It's easy to find flights with routes where a diversion to the UK would either never make sense or be impossible due to distance.

It would be a hassle though.

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