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IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

prestonbyrne.com

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Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#251

Post by kelnos »

gpm wrote: post #113
landl0rd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a reply. I am not responsible for checking the locality of an IP address. Indeed, I can never do so with one hundred per cent accuracy. It is Not My Problem. Governments that expect some content or other blocked can damn well do it themselves, in their own legal system. They cannot compel someone else to spend his time, talent, or treasure to enforce their petty rules. If they go after one of their own for requ…

It is a reply... that you chose to send despite being fully aware that by doing so you might be reaching out across borders because that's how the internet and your contracts with your service providers works. Governments can do whatever they damn well please in their own territory. Including arresting you if you ever visit because you violated some law that they wrote that applies to people in the rest of the world,…

> It is a reply... that you chose to send despite being fully aware that by doing so you might be reaching out across borders because that's how the internet and your contracts with your service providers works.

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. I'm not thinking about that at all. I do not care about that at all. I am not beholden to the laws of any other nation when I operate my website[0]. I don't care about "reaching out across borders". I don't event know the geographical origin of requests that hit my server, because I don't care, and I have no need or desire to hook up some sort of (error-prone) geoIP database to my logs in order to categorize requests. Once the HTTP response packets leave my server and hit the first router hop, I have no knowledge or interest in where they end up after that.

> SCOTUS (with an emphasis on the US) decisions seem rather irrelevant to non-US actors.

Not sure why you're bringing that up, as GP didn't mention SCOTUS at all. But as a US citizen and resident, SCOTUS' rulings are all that matter to me when it comes to what I personally do while at home. If SCOTUS says the content on my website is legal based on US law, then I don't really care whether or not it's legal in other countries[0, again], and I shouldn't really have to; life is too short to have to worry about that sort of thing.

[0] Sure, I agree with you that this could be a problem for me if I do break any of their laws, and then later decide I want to visit that country. It could also be a problem if that country has an extradition treaty with mine, and my country is for some reason incentivized to give me up.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#253

Post by hsuduebc2 »

beejiu wrote: post #9

I don't really understand the concern. The UK objects to suicide forums and American operators of suicide forums are protected by the First Amendment of extradition to the UK. So if you want to operate a suicide forum from America, just don't travel to the UK and you're okay.

Exactly. Honestly after the how article was ended by the nonsensical nationalistic chest beating which I absolutely didn't understand why author felt the urge to do that, I got the feeling that it was more about some sense of authors nationalistic pride. I do not even slightly support these UK's regulations and even an possiblity of ban of VPN services seems bizzare to me but as you said. He is already protected.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#254

Post by hunterpayne »

machomaster wrote: post #237
hunterpayne wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the US doesn't do that. We had to make special international treaties which involved getting other governments to sign up for that (in exchange for other concessions). Stop inventing things that never happened just to excuse your politicians bad behavior. PS Arresting foreigners for things that happened outside of your territory is an act of war.

You should ask AI go give you a long list of people who were arrested/captured/kidnapped/killed by the USA for the things they did outside of the US. Often, without doing anything illegal (locally, but sometimes even by US law). Guantanamo bay exists outside of the US territory for a reason, so that no legal rules would apply. CIA/USA has been keeping secret prisons and torturing people all around the world (incl. EU…

[flagged]

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#255

Post by mike_hearn »

hunterpayne wrote: post #197
vessenes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preston talks about this in an earlier blog post. It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. "If Parliament says smoking in Paris is illegal, it is illegal." What's different today than when that doctrine was conceived of is: data goes everywhere, communications are decentralized, international cooperation around es…

Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK governmen…

> PPS I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners.

The USA does this quite regularly. Look at FATCA as one example.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#256

Post by cindyllm »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #248
anonymousDan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the US does this shit all the time. Suck it up.

“Suck it up” like you stubbed your toe and not like you got shoved in a cage by a foreign government.

[dead]

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#257

Post by kelnos »

gpm wrote: post #192
Hizonner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US will enforce most UK court judgements. I'm not sure how administrative fines work; there might be a need to involve a court first, but once that's done the US will [on edit- may] enforce them. The US will not enforce UK judgements or fines if enforcing them is contrary to the US' own laws, including its Constitution. SCOTUS ultimately decides when that's the case. So it's really, really relevant to whether a n…

Sure... I think it's pretty much a given that Ofcom expects the US won't help them enforce this law given the 1st amendment. That doesn't mean they won't/shouldn't do their best to do so by themselves..

> That doesn't mean they won't/shouldn't do their best to do so by themselves.

If I were a UK citizen or resident, I'd probably be pretty pissed off that Ofcom was wasting money and resources on battles they are going to lose. Well, I suppose, since Ofcom is funded in large part by the UK-based businesses it regulates, if I were an officer, employee, or shareholder of one of those companies, I'd be pissed that they're wasting money paid by my company to fund them.

And even though Ofcom is not directly a UK government agency, there are certainly political costs to tilting at windmills for the UK government.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#258

Post by Pet_Ant »

hunterpayne wrote: post #197
vessenes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preston talks about this in an earlier blog post. It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. "If Parliament says smoking in Paris is illegal, it is illegal." What's different today than when that doctrine was conceived of is: data goes everywhere, communications are decentralized, international cooperation around es…

Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK governmen…

> What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore?

Like the US did with Swiss banks?

“…the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” — Thucydides, 5.89 (trans. Rex Warner, Penguin Classics edition)

(half-remembered quote found using AI)

original source https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Peloponnesian_...

Book 5, end of paragraph 89

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#259

Post by bee_rider »

vitus wrote: post #122
holbrad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I this is exactly how you should respond to outrageous demands. The UK should pound sand.

I get that it's satisfying to tell them to go away because they're being unreasonable. But what's the legal strategy here? Piss off the regulators such that they really won't drop this case, and give them fodder to be able to paint the lawyer and his client as uncooperative? Is the strategy really just "get new federal laws passed so UK can't shove these regulations down our throats"? Is that going to happen on a tim…

He says on his site that he wants the US to pass a “shield law,” I guess the idea must be to pass a law that explicitly says we don’t extradite for this, pass along the fines, or whatever.

It seems like inside the US, this must be constitutionally protected speech anyway. I’m not 100% sure, but it would seem quite weird if the US could enter a treaty that requires us to enforce the laws of other countries in a way that is against our constitution. Of course the constitution doesn’t apply to the UK (something people just love to point out in these discussions), but it does apply to the US, which would be the one actually doing the enforcing, right?

Anyway, bumping something all the way up to the Supreme Court is a pain in the ass, so it may make sense to just pass a law to make it explicit.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#260

Post by Danjoe4 »

Hizonner wrote: post #55

You shouldn't even be expected to geoblock. If I'm operating a Web site in country A, I should not have to care about country B's laws unless I am taking specific action intended to attract users in country B in particular . That's doesn't mean just to target the whole world, either. If you don't want your citizens to access something in another country, take it up with your citizens. It was obvious from the minute t…

That's the current status quo. The UK can't sue you, extradite you, or really do anything. Assuming that your service providers are US based and you follow US law, they can pound sand. In practice, the US is the only country powerful enough to enforce its laws extraterritoriality. The UK trying to enforce its internet laws on me? An American citizen? Funny joke
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