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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

#261

Post by epolanski »

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 have worked for a company that was threatened by the US to not offer services to several countries or face criminal charges in the US. I'm talking about a saas nothing strange.

We were too small and bent, also US customers were 30% of the total which made it a non choice.

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

#262

Post by whatever1 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #235
whatever1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real goal it to start banning US sites like fb,aws etc so that Europe starts building their own

> Europe starts building their own They have had decades to do this. They have not. Risk aversion and Regulation are the heart of the issue. Same things that have flattened the American housing market for the last 30 years.

They did not because they were in the honeymoon with the US. They were buying weapons and expensive American services in exchange for security. This era is over.

Today building social network or a cloud provider is a trivial exercise. If the financial incentive is there (aka ban of US services), they will pop out like mushrooms.

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

#263

Post by JonChesterfield »

vorpalhex wrote: post #96
chrisjj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4Chan operates in the US And the UK... each time it delivers there.

4Chan has blocked the entire UK IP range. They do not host any infrastructure there. They are bound by UK law exactly as much as they are bound by Venutian or Mars law.

Nope. A direct connection from residential British Telecom line is fine.

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

#264

Post by jimnotgym »

ronsor wrote: post #187
mattmanser wrote: post #180

Earlier 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.

Whereas the US are very happy to demand extradition when the shoe is on the other foot.

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

#265

Post by epolanski »

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.

> You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business

The us does that regularly. There's thousands of companies that cannot do business with entities from countries like China or they can face criminal charges in US.

A former company I had as a client, EU based SaaS faced this.

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

#267

Post by markdown »

Spivak wrote: post #223
EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #184

Ofcom 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…

Well they technically do, parliamentary sovereignty means that the UK can, "legislate to ban smoking on the streets of Paris." There are no limits to what laws they can write, even ones that are out of their jurisdiction, absurd, or unenforceable.

The U.S. asserts the right to prosecute anyone, anywhere, who provides material support to any group they label as a terrorist organization.

Not only is this enforceable, it has been enforced, and people have been assassinated without charge for this crime.

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

#268

Post by edwcross »

throwawaytea wrote: post #259
diego_sandoval wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think anyone running a website should avoid visiting the UK from now on.

A gf asked to go on a trip to England/Ireland and I told her I will go to Brazil or Colombia before I go to the UK. Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them.

In those countries, you'll probably have more to fear for your physical security from non-governmental threats than the other way around.

But given the increasingly dystopian state of many countries worldwide, you may also encounter difficulties related to administrative burden and systems with not enough human oversight and override for exceptional situations.

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

#269

Post by specproc »

throwawaytea wrote: post #259
diego_sandoval wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think anyone running a website should avoid visiting the UK from now on.

A gf asked to go on a trip to England/Ireland and I told her I will go to Brazil or Colombia before I go to the UK. Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them.

No chance I'd go to America, as they definitely check that sort of thing at the border now.

Not sure how often that happens coming to the UK, yet.

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

#270

Post by epolanski »

dmitrygr wrote: post #159
kasperni wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which will ultimately push alienation towards US for good.

Trump is merely a huge accelerator of an existing trend.

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