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

bbc.com

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

#151

Post by strideashort »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #37
dijit wrote: post #16

The response from Ofcom doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you are to sell a toy in the UK you must be a British company. (and must pay VAT and comply with British safety standards). If a consumer buys from overseas and imports a product then they do not have British consumer protections. Which is why so much aliexpress electrical stuff is dangerous (expecially USB chargers) yet it continues to be legally imported. Jus…

The US CBP routinely intercepts "dangerous" products. I assume the Brits have the same. It's a wonder why AliExpress flies under the radar. I assume it's impossible to keep up with it all. The UK's comically over-engineered electrics are no match for some of these plug-in-and-die sketchy USB chargers from the Far East. DiodesGoneWild on YouTube does teardowns of many of these incredibly poorly constructed deathtraps.

And by extension, the UK is free to implement His Majesty’s Greatest Firewall of the UK should they wish to control what is imported.

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

#152

Post by ecshafer »

cyberclimb wrote: post #50
ecshafer wrote: post #39

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?

It should only affect companies that have a presence in Europe, as in an office or some entity.

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

#154

Post by soco »

kimixa wrote: 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…

I think people here are also more fond of 4chan than the average citizen, and also in general rather fond of technological freedom of anything. Makes sense, being players basically in the team about to get a red card. Like it or not, the global internet became a convenient way to skirt local laws and I don't see any reason why exempting something in one place only because it originated in some other place. Is now enforcing a law "the CCP way"? Should internet be kept lawless only because... internet?

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

#155

Post by LaurensBER »

mrtksn wrote: post #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…

I agree but you have to understand that a lot of European (leaders) still have WW2 in the back of their head.

For them there're far worse things than giving up some freedoms.

One can agree or disagree with this but Europe's actions are far more understandable if you see where they're coming from.

From what it's worth, the younger generation doesn't seem to see this the same way so whatever censure Europe introduces today will most likely be temporary.

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

#156

Post by BobaFloutist »

nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #102
john_strinlai wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a great clickhole headline that your comment reminds me of "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point" 4chan has produced some hilarious/interesting stuff, and they have also driven people to suicide. i suppose it is up to everyone individually to make the value judgement there.

Replace "4chan" with "humanity in general" and your statement still holds true.

I mean that's pretty vacuously true, since (the community of) "4chan" is a subset of (the total population of) "humanity in general," but it's a stronger and more interesting claim to make about the subculture in question.

If anything, the person you were replying to was intentionally describing how 4chan is less dissimilar to humanity in general than its typical portrayal, so responding with a dismissal that that makes them just the same as everyone else is really just affirming their point.

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

#157

Post by bigmealbigmeal »

cm2187 wrote: post #110
gnfargbl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a UK citizen: you're exactly right. If the UK wants to prevent 4chan from being imported into the UK then it needs to block it at the border as it would for physical goods. The fact that's technically hard to do (at least without going full-on CCP) doesn't change the situation. Attempting to fine a foreign entity for doing something that breaks no laws in the foreign entity's jurisdiction is just risible.

And we shall call it "the Great Firewall of the UK". It is amazing that these guys don't see the irony of monkeying totaliterian states policies, in term of surveillance and censorship.

They’re going to keep ignoring these issues because the wrong people are pointing them out. The enemy must always be wrong.

Tribalism is awful for societies. There’s a reason Russia put so much effort into amplifying it in the west.

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

#158

Post by DevKoala »

3rodents wrote: post #125
dijit wrote: post #16

The response from Ofcom doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you are to sell a toy in the UK you must be a British company. (and must pay VAT and comply with British safety standards). If a consumer buys from overseas and imports a product then they do not have British consumer protections. Which is why so much aliexpress electrical stuff is dangerous (expecially USB chargers) yet it continues to be legally imported. Jus…

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.

That sounds so gross. Why do British people tolerate that? It’s as if British people belong to their government.

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

#159

Post by dmitrygr »

kasperni wrote: post #97
ecshafer wrote: post #39

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 is this different than, for example, the US fining TikTok? https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-ftc-record-fine-childrens...

Simply put: The US has the ability to enforce or to cause enough pain to cause self-enforcement

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

#160

Post by rocqua »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #103
vasco wrote: post #11

People used to tell kids to not go to a shady part of town while they spent their afternoons outside unsupervised. Can parents not tell kids to not go to certain websites? We still went to the shady part of town and the kids will still go to 4chan but at least we don't need to give away freedoms. Such erosion of freedom for the common person because parents can't have an awkward conversation is irritating.

I'm moving away from that line of thinking. We can discuss how poorly formulated this law is, and the implications for privacy of internet control bills, and the resulting eroding of our freedom of speech. It's correct to be suspicous of attempts to regulate the internet. But I'm becoming increasingly convinced that "for the sake of the children" such measures are necessary. The reality is that most kids these days h…

So the solution is effective parental controls. Government mandated age verification isn't parental control, and is unlikely to be very effective.

That means making it possible for parents to actively block bad websites, and making that hard to circumvent.

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