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

sigh You've not lived in a police state, or more accurately, you've been online too much to actually get context.

In the UK threatening to kill someone has been illegal since at least ~1880 something. Going online an publicly calling for the death of one or more person (which in the eyes of the law is pretty close to sending a good old paper death threat) is not only widely considered a dick move, its illegal.

Now, How do you enforce that? the police investigate, and if its deemed a credible threat, you are visited by the plod. Who most likley go "look mate, don't be a dick".

If you are really being a dick, you might be cautioned (taken to the police station and told "you're being a shit")

The next stage up is appearing in court.

And then you have to be convicted by a jury of your peers, and the burden of evidence is really quite high. ("oh but that mum, she was innocent." I advise you to read all that she wrote, you know the extra bits that the sun can't print)

Its not like you're bundled into the back of a van by masked goons who refuse to identify themselves. Taken to a mass detention centre and not seen for weeks, and then yeeted to an illegal jail.

But why are the police investigating social media?

Now thats a good question. And the answer is: Musk doesn't moderate. Stuff that gets you a visit from the plod is generally against the community standards of social media, even X.

Now to your point here: "When police show up to your door and ask you to apologize to people for causing distress"

I've had a visit from the police, why? because I was young and being an antisocial shit. The police were not actually there to arrest me, and I don't think they could actually if they wanted to. The point was, they were there to make the town liveable for all it's citizens. I was "fucking around", and the police were gently telling me that I'd really not like to "find out".

"OH BUT PERSONAL FREEDOM". Now, the thing is, I was perfectly free to carry on my bad ways. The problem was, those ways, had they descended further, would have resulted in jail time. The choice was mine.

I don't want to live in a country where its acceptable to bully whomever I like, in the guise of personal freedom. Sure, speak your mind, but don't be a dick about it.

We used to just out and out shoot them.

We used to demand that they have their voices literally overdubbed by an actor.

We used to round people up and jail them for being too irish.

We used to be in a civil war, up until the 2000s.

You're just having a cyberpunk wet dream. Don't get me wrong, the OSA is an abomination. but you are being a hyperbolic child, especially as actual authoritarianism is happening in the USA, without anything as a peep from the same blowhards talking about the OSA.

So UK laws stop at the UK border.

4Chan is a US company, based in the US, with all its people and stuff in the US. It has never had a presence in the UK.

In the US people and companies have the right to free speech guaranteed under the first amendment, that includes speech conducted online. Many people would consider having the ability to speak, but having the government restrict hearing that speech to amount to a free speech violation.

The only jurisdiction 4Chan operates in is the US and they are defending their rights: they also have that right, the US isn't North Korea, or China, or the UK.

This isn't a matter of can they censor, of course they can. This is a matter of they don't have to, and they won't.

The UK has no jurisdiction, or reason to believe they have jurisdiction, or ability to enforce its laws extraterritorially over pretty much any foreign entity, but especially not the US.

Anyway you look at this, this is a jumped up little backwater not content with robbing their own citizens of their rights, they are now trying to rob others too.