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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

#161

Post by maleldil »

owisd wrote: post #142
constantius wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting, an insightful overview of the ramifications of the Online Safety Act on online freedoms. > Perhaps most troubling, the UK’s approach sets a dangerous precedent for global internet regulation. If every country can claim jurisdiction over any website accessible within its borders, the internet becomes subject to the most restrictive speech laws anywhere in the world. Another interesting point is tha…

The UK already blocks certain websites at the national level, e.g. you can’t access Pirate Bay from a UK ISP, so can’t imagine Ofcom blocking 4chan would cause much consternation among those who aren’t already against the OSA.

I can access https://thepiratebay.org/index.html just fine from Hyperoptic.

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

#162

Post by bendigedig »

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…

> There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests.

How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? It's a fine for refusing to comply with a law in the UK; any sufficiently competent organisation could choose to comply with censorship/age gating in one country and avoid those restrictions in all others.

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

#163

Post by KaiserPro »

blibble wrote: post #136
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…

> it doesn't look like these Ofcom guys are playing with a full deck they're a quango, staffed by those who couldn't make it as civil servants (not a high bar) I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet similarly useless are ofwat (water) and ofgem (energy), both of which allowed massive scandals to happen on their watch ofwat: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/21/new-powerfu...…

> staffed by those who couldn't make it as civil servants

Still civil service.

> I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet

They do, but the pricks who created the law are/were reactionary politicians, who couldn’t be bothered to actually draft decent laws.

Ofwat and ofgem are different issues, they have suffered regulatory capture.

Ofwat has the power to bankrupt the entire water system. Which is great, but then the government would have to bail out the shareholders. which means not only higher taxes, but no private investment for large scale. Oh and ballooning public debt.

Which means stagflation, well harder stagflation. There is a ton more to this.

Don't get me wrong it needs reform, but that costs money. We need to have the money to hire decent staff. But with the impeding cuts and what ever dipshittery from Reform next, thats not going to happen

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

#164

Post by mytailorisrich »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #132
mytailorisrich wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is deemed illegal in an US court then the OSA will be unenforcebale against US entities in the US (though not sure what's needed to set precedent). This is important because otherwise UK fines may be enforceable in US courts.

> This is important because otherwise UK fines may be enforceable in US courts. UK law is generally unenforcible in the US except extradition agreements for crimes commuted while residing in the UK . That's not the case here and there's no agreement that applies to this case.

It is possible to enforce UK judgements and fines in the US, though my understanding is that it is not simple or guaranteed.

I suppose the action 4chan is taking in US court is exactly to avoid this possibility.

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

#165

Post by noir_lord »

rob_c wrote: post #147
noir_lord wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has seriously discussed banning VPN's - one minister mentioned they where looking it and no one said anything about private keys either as far as I know . If I'm wrong someone can drop me a link since I live in the UK.

it's been mulled over and keeps getting brought up again and again, the Overton window has shifted from "go away and come back when you're serious to", "christ how would we comply with that?" https://nordvpn.com/blog/tech-world-angry-with-theresa-mays-... If you live here how can you not spot how every govt since they kicked out brown has been pushing for this?

I'm aware and it's precisely because it's not a new thing been seeing it for years, I specifically was asking for a citation for this government.

I don't rule out they are daft enough to consider it, I just think they aren't quite that stupid.

OSA was a "something must be done, this is something, it must be done" thing - they can appease the mumsnet types for a bit with it and would generally prefer it quietly went back to sleep for a bit.

Not least because it's gonna hurt them electorally because while the people who are slightly in favour of it where slightly in favour of it a lot of the people who aren't really aren't seeing it as either unworkable, stupid or unworkable and stupid.

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

#167

Post by dmitrygr »

throwaway98743 wrote: post #166

Commentators criticising the act and ofcom’s attempt, do understand the online safety act is to prevent children from watching porn? The critique always lacks any form of grounding in reality or proposal of alternative solutions

There is already a method for that, it is called parenting. Technology never could, cannot, and never will solve problems that are human in nature

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

#168

Post by general1465 »

throwaway98743 wrote: post #166

Commentators criticising the act and ofcom’s attempt, do understand the online safety act is to prevent children from watching porn? The critique always lacks any form of grounding in reality or proposal of alternative solutions

With this logic we could ban selling knives, because you can use them to kill somebody.

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

#169

Post by spacebanana7 »

bendigedig wrote: post #162
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…

> There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests. How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? It's a fine for refusing to comply with a law in the UK; any sufficiently competent organisation could choose to comply with censorship/age gating in one country and avoid those restrictions in all others.

A lot of the US rules in this area came from UK courts trying to enforce defamation/libel related claims on US authors and journalists.

The American consensus basically became that US courts don’t enforce overseas judgments on free speech stuff where the speech would be legal in the US. Even if that speech could be “heard” elsewhere.

See the Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz case (2005) and subsequent US SPEECH act (2010).

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

#170

Post by throwaway98743 »

general1465 wrote: post #168
throwaway98743 wrote: post #166

Commentators criticising the act and ofcom’s attempt, do understand the online safety act is to prevent children from watching porn? The critique always lacks any form of grounding in reality or proposal of alternative solutions

With this logic we could ban selling knives, because you can use them to kill somebody.

In the UK you need to be over 18 to buy knives
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