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4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

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Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#51

4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

And now we'll watch the UK take the logical next step which is for the government to mandate that all ISPs in the country block 4chan.

CCP "Great Firewall" style.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#52

4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

As shown in that same article, they also responded:

>>>

"Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," she said.

"The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short."

Quite frankly she seems completely out of touch with her own argument. The UK can certainly legislate away tobacco sales, for instance; they can't go after tobacco producers in a foreign state. 4Chan operates in the US and is a US company. They have no jurisdiction over it, even if their citizenry can access it; it's on them to block that access if they don't like it. Unless they're also implying that the US government should be allowed to go after UK companies that don't follow it's free speech regulations because American citizens can access them.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#53

UK fining an American company for this is absurd. 4Chan isn't breaking any laws. You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business. UK citizens should fight for the right to free speech though.

How about the EU imposing GDPR restrictions on non-eu companies?

Depends on whether those businesses want to do business with the EU

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#54
post #51

4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

And now we'll watch the UK take the logical next step which is for the government to mandate that all ISPs in the country block 4chan. CCP "Great Firewall" style.

Most Brits already have a VPN to beat off so the effect will be negligible.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#55

UK fining an American company for this is absurd. 4Chan isn't breaking any laws. You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business. UK citizens should fight for the right to free speech though.

How about the EU imposing GDPR restrictions on non-eu companies?

I think that's different because I have a positive personal opinion of the GDPR and a negative personal opinion about what the UK is doing. Therefore the GDPR is good and this is bad. It's really quite objective.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#56
post #43

There's always people that say it's the parents responsibility to monitor their kids. But as a parent, you either give your kids full access to the internet or nothing. The fault lies with the OS companies Google, Microsoft, Apple. They do a terrible job with parental controls. They make it very hard to setup, they're confusing and hard to use plus they barely work. I think they just do it as a checkbox for marketing…

OS makers should not be in the business of enforcing censorship. If you want to shield your children from the "horrors" of the internet either use proper parental control software, or don't allow access at all like you said until your kids are mature to understand what's going on

The onus is on the parent to the be parent. Not the tech industry, and especially not the government.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#57

UK fining an American company for this is absurd. 4Chan isn't breaking any laws. You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business. UK citizens should fight for the right to free speech though.

While I agree it seems absurd, this is how the UK's unwritten constitution works - the UK Parliament is not restricted to legislating just for the territory of the UK. Of course it can only realistically enforce within UK borders, but it can pass whatever legislation it wishes.

There is a famous quote regarding this nature of British parliamentary sovereignty that is taught to every law student in the UK: "If Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence" - Ivor Jennings.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#58

4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

As shown in that same article, they also responded: >>> "Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," she said. "The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll…

> 4Chan operates in the US

And the UK... each time it delivers there.

Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

#59
post #51

4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

And now we'll watch the UK take the logical next step which is for the government to mandate that all ISPs in the country block 4chan. CCP "Great Firewall" style.

Already have the makings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_th...
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