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…
Is it correct to say the consumer is importing a product when it's aliexpress shipping it to them?
4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
201–210 of 936 posts
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd be amazed at the times I've argued with people on HN that free speech infringement by the UK government has grown rampant, only for them to enact the next draconian law a month later.
UK is trying to be like Russia and China, where a minder will show up at your door if you post something the government doesn't like. Then people online will defend it because the investigation didn't turn into a full criminal charge or they say the people simply deserved it. The reality is this will seriously chill speech broadly across the country regardless of either of those outcomes, and the technical costs of e…
I mean there are parties that say they like free speech, but it never extends to the sort of speech they disagree with, or by people of the wrong colour/religion/gender etc.
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#203Europeans 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 t…
I think you're falsely attributing this to WW2. Free speech is simply just not part of European culture in the way that it is a part of american culture. The ideal of "free speech" regardless of how well that ideal is implemented in practice is something that is much more instilled in US culture than European culture.
They simply do not give a shit the same way that the US claims it gives a shit about free speech. To them its an afterthought. Nothing to do with WW2 and the trauma of it.
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's depressingly true; it seems the UK really heading quickly towards a Great Firewall, they've been looking to control VPN use [1] and the top most read article on BBC News right now is yet another public sector cover up of children being sexually abused. [2]
[1] https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/uk-govern...
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#205Ofcom is currently threatening a Canadian forum that exists to help people with depression. Ofcom claims that geoblocking blocking the UK is "insufficient": > I've also gone back to Ofcom explicitly telling them the UK was now geoblocked (twice now) and I received a response that this was insufficient. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_ru... Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply gl…
After bending over backwards for US media companies in the 2000s they thought it went both ways, turns out it doesn't. Oh well, the uncensored web from my NL VPN still looks the same.
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not so clear cut though is it. For example, does 4chan use a CDN? And is that CDN on UK/EU soil, serving this content? Therefore they're actually transacting that business on UK/EU soil. Didn't the US use this argument to prosecute and extradite the Mega founder? I wonder if the UK/EU will reverse uno the US's stance and start extraditions on US CEOs.
The US would likely not process those extraditions, and it would make trade and international relations worse for no real benefit.
Imagine this scenario, a major G7 country declares:
All bytes sent to a computer on their soil count as a transaction on their soil.
And the end client being on a VPN is not a defence UNLESS the website owner attempts to verify the user's identity.
Immediately have to pay local taxes, conform to local laws.
Unless you keep all your assets in the US and never fly abroad, our shady website operator is exposing them self to real risk of being snatched by police somewhere or having their assets seized.
The only thing stopping that from happening is the trade agreements the Americans have put in place, the very trade agreements everyone's now looking at and thinking 'what are these really worth?'.
Yeah, it's fantasy and it won't happend but it could.
The internet is not free, it runs on sufferance of a bunch of governments and some, like China, already lock it down.
The more America, who probably gains the most from it right now, plays with fire, the more risk something like this crazy scenario happens.
Another more plausible scenario is countries simply start repealing safe harbor laws. End of YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/etc. in those countries overnight.
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#207If it wasn't for 4Chan, we might never have solved the Haruhi problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation#Lower_bounds,... I used to go on a curated version of 4Chan via Telegram. Yes there is a lot of racism (although it flies in every direction, between every ethnicity you could imagine) but there is also (due to the anonymous nature) some genuinely interesting discussions. I remember one thread about ai…
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#208Earlier 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.
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
#209Earlier 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.
That sounds so gross. Why do British people tolerate that? It’s as if British people belong to their government.
The people who support incest porn are a lot less talkative.
As such our windsock government with no strong beliefs does what the survey says is most popular.
Re: 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
#210Earlier 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.
That sounds so gross. Why do British people tolerate that? It’s as if British people belong to their government.
Legally speaking, British people are subjects, not citizens.