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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

#141
post #67

This part is somewhat surprising to me: > Data shows that nearly 80% of the top 100 pornography sites in the UK now have age checks in place. This means that on average, every day, over 7 million visitors from the UK are accessing pornography services that have deployed age assurance. I would have expected that most people would switch to other pornography sites that don't have age checks rather than doing an age che…

The first part is true but the second sentence seems dubious to me. Did they compute that from the previous visitor numbers or something?

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

#142
post #4

> "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. So the UK plans to fine Parisian bars that serve alcohol to British under-18s in France on holiday?

I'm not sure one needs to stretch the analogy this far.

If someone from the UK calls me on the phone and I start reading them posts on 4chan, is the UK going to fine me too?

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

#144
post #134

People here seem to be thinking this a UK/Europe-specific phenomenon, but there's plenty of examples of the US "seizing" sites that were never hosted in the USA either, and even put pressure on countries to extradite people involved even if they never broke any laws in the country they're living in. One I remember was a site hosting streams of the 2022 football world cup. Or a number of Iranian-affiliated news sites…

USA doesn't block websites. The FBI will seize domains after some judicial review and a court order. That's about it.

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

#145
post #144
post #134

People here seem to be thinking this a UK/Europe-specific phenomenon, but there's plenty of examples of the US "seizing" sites that were never hosted in the USA either, and even put pressure on countries to extradite people involved even if they never broke any laws in the country they're living in. One I remember was a site hosting streams of the 2022 football world cup. Or a number of Iranian-affiliated news sites…

USA doesn't block websites. The FBI will seize domains after some judicial review and a court order. That's about it.

And you can use cctlds to bypass this too

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really true. The Ofcom representative said “not allowed” not “unable to”. Even if cocaine is legal in my country, I’m “not allowed” to sell it to British consumers by the power of the British authorities. The British authorities may not have legal authority in my jurisdiction but they can take action in their own, including issuing penalties and stopping my deliveries at the border.

But if a Brit comes to your country and buys cocaine from you, in person, you wouldn't expect to be convicted as a dealer in the UK. Ofcom has a bad handle on web requests . Clients connect out. 4chan et al aren't pushing their services in anyone in the UK.

If we want to base the argument on technical nuance, 4chan are sending their packets to the U.K. just as the cocaine dealer would be sending packets (of cocaine) to their buyers in the U.K.

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

#147

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…

> 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.

Precedent in the US is that courts do in fact have jurisdiction over a foreign website's owner if the owner "purposefully availed itself of the U.S. forum or purposefully directed its activities toward it", a test which is less demanding than it sounds. [1]

And US has taken advantage of this to go after foreign websites such as Megaupload, BTC-e, Liberty Reserve, etc.

Therefore, if there were a US law requiring companies to follow free speech rules, it could potentially be enforced against foreign website owners. But no such law currently exists. The First Amendment itself only applies to the US government (and to companies working on behalf of the US government). There is also the SPEECH Act, which, among other provisions, creates a cause of action where if someone sues a US person in a foreign court over their speech, they can sue back in US court. But only for declaratory judgement, not damages or an injunction. The goal is mainly just to prevent US courts from enforcing judgements from the foreign court in such cases.

[1] https://tlblog.org/how-to-find-personal-jurisdiction-over-fo...

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

#148
Europeans are following the wrong path on regulating the internet. Instead of calling it internet safety and annoy people, they should just make those services and the people running them liable for the damages.

The same goes for the freedom of speech. Europeans should make it legal guarantee instead of trying to build walls around speech. So when X or 4Chan etc deletes a post, it may lead to freedom of speech fines if deletion wasn't justified. Tha same for the algorithm, if a post that doesn't break the rules is discriminated by the algorithm, a hefty fine should apply.

Suddenly we will have companies that keep their business clean and no claim for moral high ground.

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