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

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

#241

Post by NotPractical »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #164
bigbadfeline wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

I am curious as to how that could possibly work. Is there some trade agreement that requires the US to respect UK court rulings? Generally the US has sought to distance itself from any kind of foreign influence or control.

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

#242

Post by NotPractical »

ben_w wrote: post #195
bendigedig wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? As I understand it, not at all. I don't think the British institutions care at all about their rights to do whatever they want outside the UK; the problem is, 4chan does provide access to people in the UK, so it's a bit like a pirate radio station that the UK would like to not be receiving owing to the station's complete lack of interest in f…

> 4chan does provide access to people in the UK

That's the default when you host an app on the world wide web, though. Regardless of how big of a burden it is for 4chan (I would think it's as simple as flipping a switch in some control panel blocking UK access?), it still does compel the US-based company with no commercial presence in the UK to consider complex international law and to make changes to their US-based web app in response to a foreign jurisdiction's regulations, which feels wrong to me.

This is tangential to whether it affects "free speech" outside the UK, though, and I'm inclined to agree that it doesn't, but I guess it depends on how you define free speech. If 4chan's web app itself is considered speech, and not just the content that's posted there, maybe. But I think free speech advocates are a lot more concerned with the content.

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

#243

Post by mytailorisrich »

NotPractical wrote: post #242
ben_w wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? As I understand it, not at all. I don't think the British institutions care at all about their rights to do whatever they want outside the UK; the problem is, 4chan does provide access to people in the UK, so it's a bit like a pirate radio station that the UK would like to not be receiving owing to the station's complete lack of interest in f…

> 4chan does provide access to people in the UK That's the default when you host an app on the world wide web, though. Regardless of how big of a burden it is for 4chan (I would think it's as simple as flipping a switch in some control panel blocking UK access?), it still does compel the US-based company with no commercial presence in the UK to consider complex international law and to make changes to their US-based…

It's the same with the GDPR...

But note that merely being accessible in the UK is not enough here. The service must either target the UK or have a significant number of users in the UK, or it provides harmful content. So the online forum for Oregon gardeners is quite safe even if, indeed, accessible from the UK.

But still it is an awkward legislation and it would be simpler to simply block rather than to threaten and fine services from around the world.

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

#244

Post by joe463369 »

toyg wrote: post #47
encom wrote: post #14

What a colossal waste of time. At this point, just unplug the undersea cables, and turn the UK into a big intranet. It's clearly what Ofcom wants.

Ofcom does what the government tells it to do. And the government does what people tell them to do. You underestimate the popular support for censorship laws in the UK - the country still had a legally-empowered "Board of Film Censors" in 2010...

The BBFC still exists today and serves pretty much the same purpose as the MPA in the land of the free. Is there any practical difference between the two?

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

#245

Post by joe463369 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #215

I wrote this years ago about GDPR but it applies here too I don't really oppose gdpr but one of the reasons I vehemently opposed implementing GDPR at my former job is that we were not operating in the EU. Well, we had customers there, but we were an American company operating with American severs. GDPR sets another precident that other countries can make laws about what people from other jurisdictions can do.. Our la…

> we were not operating in the EU. Well, we had customers there...

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

#246

Post by aydyn »

foldr wrote: post #228
aydyn wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A job is not just robotically following a script. If your actions have negative impact on the goals of your job and you do it anyway, you are bad at your job .

I didn’t make any claim about people being good at their jobs. But I’m not sure why you think that this will have a negative impact on OFCOM’s goals. Imposing the fine is probably just a formal preliminary to having UK ISPs block 4chan.

In this case, Ofcom's stated goal (which I admit may be different than their actual goal) is to get overseas companies to comply with their rules.

I think you may be giving them too much credit. You're essentially saying that their real goal is to get an ISP block and everything they are doing now is performative to get to that real, unstated goal.

On the other hand I may be underestimating them as, to me, they just seem like power-tripping troglodytes.

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

#248

Post by jsmith45 »

joe463369 wrote: post #244
toyg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofcom does what the government tells it to do. And the government does what people tell them to do. You underestimate the popular support for censorship laws in the UK - the country still had a legally-empowered "Board of Film Censors" in 2010...

The BBFC still exists today and serves pretty much the same purpose as the MPA in the land of the free. Is there any practical difference between the two?

BBFC's rulings have legal impact, and they can refuse classification making the film illegal show or sell in the UK.

over in the US, getting an MPAA rating is completely voluntary. MPAA rules do not allow it to refuse to rate a motion picture, and even if they did, the consequences would be the same as choosing not to get a rating.

If you don't get a rating in the US, some theatres and retailers may decline to show/sell your film, but you can always do direct sales, and/or set up private showings.

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

#249

Post by estimator7292 »

quamserena wrote: post #213
ronsor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Two more weeks" is a meme phrase used when an event will never actually happen. For example: "trust the plan! just two more weeks until XYZ" when XYZ will not happen.

Specifically it comes from Trump frequently saying “two more weeks” and then nothing ever happens

No

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

#250

Post by airpoint »

EarlKing wrote: post #196
bendigedig wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Ofcom attempting to enforce it's laws upon a US-resident corporation that has no business presence in the United Kingdom is the very definition of affecting one's right to free speech in the United States. This is why the US has a rich history of case law to draw upon for defining personal jurisdiction. In this case, Ofcom is perhaps hoping to exploit uncertainty regarding personal jurisdiction to impose its law upon…

Mostly incorrect. The First Amendment limits the US government, not Ofcom or UK courts. UK law can regulate services with “links to the UK” even if the provider is abroad, and Ofcom’s enforcement does not itself abridge anyone’s US constitutional rights.
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