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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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

4chan send their packets to their ISP, not the UK.

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

#162
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.

But are you allowed to post pictures of your cocaine on a website that is not in the UK?

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

#163
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…

The answer is a computer the child must sit down and use in front of the family. Steve Jobs ruined the world with the invention of the iPhone, and whoever else is responsible for the more generic smartphone. Now parents use one to quieten their children and governments use it to surveil us all.

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

#164
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.

I remember I bought some pills online one time (neutroopics type) they came from like India and were intercepted by customs/I got a letter. It's funny my roommate at the time bought em and didn't get intercepted so was odd.

In hindsight it is dumb to buy random pills and take em.

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This whole episode is a charade to do exactly that while claiming they are morally superior to China because the UK does it “for the children” while China does it because they are just evil authoritarians.

For Tiananmen Square substitute Rape Gangs.

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

#166
post #24
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory the children are committing a crime yes, but obviously enforcement is extremely low; left mainly to their teachers. I don't think UK law governs foreign companies' overseas operations based on the nationality of the customer though, no.

They’re not breaking any law. Laws apply to actions in the country, they’re not based on citizenship. If you go to Amsterdam and sleep with a hooker, you didn’t break a law by doing that: despite prostitution (specifically purchasing sex) being illegal in many western countries.

Commonwealth countries have extraterritorial jurisdiction. I don't know that it's ever been enforced for something so relatively petty as intoxication or prostitution, but it is nevertheless the law. (Obligatory IANAL though.)

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

#167
post #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.

If the solution is parental control software, that also puts onus on operating systems to present the means for such software to work properly. This does not mean the OS should censor, it might mean the OS offers a censorship interface.

At least we seem to agree the solution lies with better tools for parents.

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

#168
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…

Hard disagree. I think the control should stay with the parents where it already is. They can decide whether or not to put protections in place or whether or not to hand them a device at all.

We don't put protections on kids walking out the front door, and there's plenty of theoretical dangers there too. Let the parents educate their children.

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

#169
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

4chan send their packets to their ISP, not the UK.

The destination of the packet where it is sent, just as a toy sent from the U.S. to a customer in the U.K. is sent to the U.K. rather than the local Fedex store.

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

#170
post #110

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.

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