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Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

theregister.com

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Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#111

Post by fair_enough »

cma wrote: post #72
ddalex wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been known that certain middle east countries force passengers crafts to divert and land to get their hands on wanted people

I'm pretty sure the US and Europe do this as well, Evo Morales grounding incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

I still cannot believe the Geneva Conventions allowed this. This should have ended with John Kerry and Jen Psaki in a Swiss prison for at least 10 years, if not Barack Obama himself. We managed to convict accused war criminals with a lot less evidence in the Nuremburg trials. FOR EMPHASIS: I'm not comparing the severity of the crimes, I'm comparing the evidentiary basis for securing convictions.

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." -Henry Kissinger

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#112

Post by [deleted] »

spookie wrote: post #100
arghwhat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you likening the UK to Russia? This is not a fictive fine, it's threats of imprisonment, and ignoring the whole thing means having to avoid travelling to or through the UK for life, and that's assuming the UK doesn't try to activate any sort of extradition agreements. Even without going to prison, that's a permanent and quite significant theft of freedom of movement. If you ever travel abroad, you could end up ac…

I really fail to see the difference between this and Russia's fine.

[deleted]

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#114

Post by NoboruWataya »

alphazard wrote: post #74

What do they seek to accomplish here? There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests. No UK bureaucrats are going to make a career out of this. Going after a company that can defend itself and can't be intimidated, will prevent them from bluffing successfully against smaller companies, who could realistically be intimidated. If I were working at Ofcom, I would stay away fro…

From the article it looks like the fine here is basically for not complying with information requests (rather than a full investigation having concluded that 4chan is in violation of the substance of the Act). Ofcom probably thought 4chan would just respond to the requests by geoblocking the UK, which would have been good enough for them. But once their bluff was called, they really had no choice but to levy the fine. Announcing you are investigating someone for violating the law and then not bothering to fine them when they very clearly ignore your investigation (which is itself a violation of the law) is more destructive to your credibility than anything.

It's not like the fine has zero consequences. It will likely restrict 4chan and its senior officials from visiting or dealing with the UK, which I'm sure is annoying on a personal level if nothing else. I don't know if Ofcom currently has the power to order ISPs to block non-compliant domains, but if it doesn't you can bet it will be using this to push for that power.

As for not being able to intimidate the long tail: for US companies, yes this might further weaken Ofcom's influence over them. But companies with a UK presence who try to call Ofcom's bluff after this are likely going to have a bad time.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#115

Post by haunter »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #64
linuxftw wrote: post #41

Many people are saying this is symbolic and cannot be enforced. Unfortunately, that's just not true. Look at what happened to the founder of Telegram. Some jurisdiction decides you're violating their laws, all you need to do is catch a connecting flight or take a vacation on their soil or a place that will eagerly extradite, and you're a political prisoner. What happens if one of the officers of 4Chan or Gab is on a…

> The UK is a police state. No it isn’t.

It's a nanny state which is even worse

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#116

Post by SoftTalker »

p10jkle wrote: post #68
pengaru wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can stop the owners being able to travel to the UK or risk being detained. Big loss, that destination.

London is the third most visited city and Heathrow is the second most popular airport by international visitors. The prospect of being arrested upon arrival there might be a little annoying.

Even if you don't intend to ever set foot in the UK you could find yourself there unintentionally, if your airline needs to make an unplanned diversion. So you basically have to forego any European air travel.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#118

Post by anigbrowl »

arghwhat wrote: post #88
stronglikedan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't just threaten anything - they imposed the fine. Imposing a fine while knowing that it likely will never be collected is the very definition of "symbolic".

The threat of imprisonment if you don't pay the fine is the polar opposite of anything "symbolic". It puts individuals at significant personal risk should they ever make the mistake of traveling through the UK, in turn limiting their freedom of movement permanently even without being in prison.

This is just not that big a deal for people who don't have family or business connections there already. It'll be like 'oh no, banned from a once-great place.' Had the UK remained in the EU, they might have been able to get other countries to honor such an arrest warrant, but as it is they just look petulant.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#119

Post by pessimizer »

I'm not sure why they should care. Just banhammer the entire island. Everybody should. They can have their own independent internet, that conforms to UK laws. Let's see when HN will be fined, for advocacy of circumvention of local laws, or of strong encryption.

Facebook banned all Canadian news outlets, and they were probably actually making a few bucks from them. I can't imagine that 4chan would care too much about losing UK users. 4% of barely any revenue, maybe? Just ban them all; they're insignificant. The only drawback for UK citizens is that Reform will go up a point or two in the polls from people who prefer the authoritarianism they don't know to the authoritarianism they do, but considering the awful alternatives it's really six of one a half-dozen of the other.

One of the rational reasons people are preferring nationalists is simply because they are less powerful than the neolibs, who all work together against their populations. Better a the dumb local boss you know than a being the local outpost of a faceless world boss.

Re: Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for violating UK's Online Safety Act

#120

Post by tomku »

kijin wrote: post #56
linuxftw wrote: post #41

Many people are saying this is symbolic and cannot be enforced. Unfortunately, that's just not true. Look at what happened to the founder of Telegram. Some jurisdiction decides you're violating their laws, all you need to do is catch a connecting flight or take a vacation on their soil or a place that will eagerly extradite, and you're a political prisoner. What happens if one of the officers of 4Chan or Gab is on a…

Durov's plane wasn't redirected to France, nor were the French planning to extradite him anywhere else for all we know. He willingly landed his own private jet in Paris. I understand what point you're trying to make, but Protasevich would have been a better example. Beware of whose airspace you fly over.

Durov is also, relevantly, a naturalized French citizen in addition to his various other passports. It's not just "some jurisdiction", it's one he opted into!
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