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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

alecmuffett.com

291–300 of 817 posts

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#291
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll neutrally note that this is why Trump is blowing up Venezuelan fishing boats currently: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/15/nx-s1-5575699/why-is-the-trum... (I'll less-neutrally note that this is also absurd, and probably criminal.)

They likely do not have a flag state and could be considered pirates. Fisherman dont have 100k worth of outboard motors either.

Which law allows the death penalty for allegedly transporting drugs?

Shooting first and asking questions later is how we got into this mess of deporting us citizens.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, not being able to visit UK must be the worst punishment of all. They'll live their lives without being able to see Luton. What kind of life is that.

Might up ending a big problem if your flight has to diverge to UK.

And let's not forget governments all over the world will call in fake bomb threats to force planes to land to arrest passengers.

And with a bit of effort, the UK could call on friendly countries for extradition (such as Canada). They'll have to convince the judge that the crime is bad enough for extradition, but I'm sure they can come up with something.

It all depends on how much the UK really cares. In practice, this is probably just a big act by Ofcom so they can say "we've tried everything, we'll have to go for a full ISP-level block as a last resort".

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand if you police what people say and think you risk moderation being weponized into censorship. On the other hand if you don't you risk big corp weaponizing free speech into misinformation. It's not a simple problem to solve, and it's not like having one problem is better than the other, because both devolve outside the boundaries of democracy.

It's a very simple problem to solve. Free speech is absolute. Anyone who claims otherwise is a temporarily embarrassed hall monitor.

but it isn't absolute anywhere

It's not absolute in the US because the US constitution only protects from the governmental limiting it, which means there is a lot of potential to effectively and fully legally limit free speech. And even the government gave itself a lot of limitations where through excuses and loopholes it can limit free speech (e.g. from teachers in public schools).

Then there is the question of what even is "speech", in the us spending money can be an act of speech but wouldn't that make bribing an act of free speech even though it clearly shouldn't be legal?

Should systematically harassing/mobbing people with the intent to drive them into suicide be protected by free speech? It's speech, but you would need to be a very cold hearted person to think that this shouldn't be a crime.

Is leaking trade secrets free speech when you do it vocally? It would be strange if that where no crime but technically you do so by speech.

What if you systematically rail up people with deep fakes and all kind of misinformation? Is that free speech? Before WW2 many intellectual would probably have argued that people aren't that easy to mass rail up and as such it should be free speech. But after Hitler gained power in exactly that way the position is more one of "if people systematic rail up the population and spreed misinformation en mass with the intend to overthrow the government" then letting them do that is pretty dump thing to do.

So no "speech" not only is free speech not absolute, it's a pretty bad idea create absolute free speech protection. And both in small and large cases this has been proven again and again through history.

This doesn't mean that censorship is right either.

Like with everything in live "extremes" are close to never a good thing to peruse.

Anyway you know what is even more embarrassing then being a hall way monitor, it's to never question your believes and insisting they are right even when its repeatedly shown to you that there seems to be some problem with them. But seriously, why edit you response to add an insult against anyone who doesn't share your opinion??

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#295
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. It's like if a brit goes to paris to buy cigarettes, the UK is stating that it's the tabac's job to refuse the transaction. They can say whatever they want, but the UK can't conduct an extra-territorial police action in france. They can bar subject from traveling to france instead. The onus is on the UK.

They're not going to Paris, are they? 4chan brings their services into the UK. The US does the same thing: Kim Dotcom comes to mind.

No, the ISPs who operate the ASes and routers that make up "the internet" are the ones who bring the service to the UK.

4chan does not reach out to UK users in any way, only responds to their incoming requests.

It really is analogous to UK users going to a foreign country, buying something that their home country has an issue with, having a third party ship it to their home country, and then their home country getting mad at the store.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this to be as insulting as it may, but the UK government trying to police US businesses has always felt like a toddler trying to ground his mom.

You are missing the point. US has a lot of harmful cultural exports and one of them is streaming, where people degrade and humiliate themselves for money and the like. Then there is yt shorts, then 4chan, then social media. These slowly degrade societies, like it or not. At least someone tries to do something to weed out the utter, batshit crazy adults, actually childminded idiots, who think the world is their playgr…

> These slowly degrade societies, like it or not.

So, thought crimes?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of precedence for this, and I am about to fudge a bunch of details. The basic point is that the United Kingdom can make any law it sees fit to any place or person. Even though it may only exercise punitive issues once they arrival inside the physical jurisdiction. So the example I was taught, the UK can pass a law banning smoking in Paris, but may not arrest/fine until such criminal trespassers get of…

The United States (eg. illegal gambling, hacking), South Korea (smoking cannabis abroad) and many other countries operate the same way.

You are saying that when US citizens engage in illegal gambling in other parts of the world, the US sues and threatens the foreign gambling venues? That South Korea sues marihuana dispensaries in the US when they sell to visiting Koreans?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put anyone in charge of any space and they'll want to control what people say and think there. Hell look at HN and literally anywhere. Everybody has their own "ideal" world. I for instance don't want anybody talking shit about anime or video games ever.

If speech in the U.K. was moderated like HN, the situation would be greatly improved.

Until you get put in prison for reading out a headline wrong lol

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#299
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still sounds absurd to me. Nations should not be in the business of passing laws that apply to extraterritorial actions of foreign citizens. I know that it happens, especially with the US, but IMHO it’s just not how things should work. This has become far too normalized due to decades of bad behavior by the US, and it’s going to come back to bite us as US power declines. Just wait until 30 years from now when you…

The end punishment will still end up being that 4chan is not allowed to do business in the UK. If they want their website to work in the UK, they should follow UK law.

Then the UK should just step up and pass a censorship law, not do this song-and-dance about fining businesses outside their control.

If this kind of BS becomes too common then running a small internet business will become impossible. Even if you don’t do business in a country, you will have to consider whether or not they might consider you in violation of some obscure law and then consider whether or not that country has the leverage to impact your business or even your own personal safety. It’s utterly ridiculous. This would spell the end of the global internet, except for megacorps. It’s already a tough business environment as it is.

The status quo is that some countries have these laws, but they are generally ignored unless you’re a citizen, you manage to do something geopolitically significant, or you get involved in transnational crime rings. This seems acceptable to me. If countries don’t like the free internet, then ban it so we can all see what you’re really up to.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#300

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

Age restricted filtering of the internet is the default on all UK mobile networks as far as I know, it might even be the law that it defaults to filtering. You have to actually ring them up and say you want the filtering switched off or some do it as part of the sign up process. All the routers also come with filtering settings as well and ISPs ship with the filtering on by default, since that is the law and has been…

disgusting

my dream is when ISPs are allowed to sell this, but not allowed to call it internet access.

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