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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

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Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#351

Post by hax0ron3 »

James_K wrote: post #328
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #222

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.

US businesses can get bent. Half my country is rotten and hollowed out, all the shops replaced by Amazon. Screw them. Uber wants to come over here and put our local cabbies out of work, then bring them all back on lower wages with higher fees. Screw off. Air B&B destroys affordable housing all across Europe and turns cities into tourist hell. Oracle comes over here and they're trying their damnedest to get their hand…

If your countrymen want to use Uber, Air B&B, Oracle, and Facebook, should you try to stop them from doing it, even if you personally dislike those companies?

You are making the same argument that Trump is making with the tariffs. Personally, while I can see some good arguments for protectionism, I'd rather have the choice to decide whether or not I want to buy Chinese products, rather than the government making the choice for me.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#352

Post by flumpcakes »

I think the premise of this is simple, and a lot of people seem to not be understanding this...

The UK can make a law and apply it however they see fit. 4Chan is providing a service to UK people (a website you can access) and is not implementing the law. Ultimately the UK cannot enforce this law until money destined to/from 4Chan passes through the UK or people associated with the site visit UK territories.

In practicality this law for the most part will just mean either websites block the UK or UK ISPs are forced to block websites.

But this law was designed for the websites and platforms that will not be willing to do that as they make money off of UK citizens, such as Amazon/Facebook/Youtube/etc.

If a website blocks UK users then the law doesn't apply as it is only concerned with protecting UK citizens. If a foreign company was shipping drugs or guns to UK children, or your choice of obvious contraband, then why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable? This is how it has always worked and I am not seeing why this is a problem just because it's in the digital space.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#353

Post by Bender »

whimsicalism wrote: post #164
Bender wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's ever a hornets nest you don't want to fuck with it's 4chan That certainly used to be the case pre-2012 . All the former hactivists have long since left. marriage, kids, real life, etc... Now it's mostly handfuls of edgy boys on cell phones in school and 4chan-GPT creating and responding to threads. I wish I were wrong. The site went mostly dead for about two weeks when USAID was defunded and had to shift f…

idk, 4chan still can have the highest quality of technical conversation (at least on ML) outside of twitter/X —- and yes, that’s including HN. it’s where the llama & mistral weights were leaked

Yeah don't get me wrong, once in a while something interesting is posted. Any time something is said in corporate media to be leaked that is the first ClearWeb site I check to see if someone has posted to a paste/git site.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#354

Post by pclmulqdq »

James_K wrote: post #328
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #222

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.

US businesses can get bent. Half my country is rotten and hollowed out, all the shops replaced by Amazon. Screw them. Uber wants to come over here and put our local cabbies out of work, then bring them all back on lower wages with higher fees. Screw off. Air B&B destroys affordable housing all across Europe and turns cities into tourist hell. Oracle comes over here and they're trying their damnedest to get their hand…

So ban those businesses from operating in your region. Don't pretend that Ofcom can regulate the content that is viewed around the world just because you're upset about things in your country.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#355

Post by mmooss »

Bender wrote: post #126
IlikeKitties wrote: post #9

I bought a 4chan pass today just to support the effort. If there's ever a hornets nest you don't want to fuck with it's 4chan and i can't imagine a better poking stick than ofcom.

If there's ever a hornets nest you don't want to fuck with it's 4chan That certainly used to be the case pre-2012 . All the former hactivists have long since left. marriage, kids, real life, etc... Now it's mostly handfuls of edgy boys on cell phones in school and 4chan-GPT creating and responding to threads. I wish I were wrong. The site went mostly dead for about two weeks when USAID was defunded and had to shift f…

4chan was funded by USAID? Is this an in-joke?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#356

Post by pclmulqdq »

James_K wrote: post #342
zettabomb wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough luck, if you don't like it, then you (or your government) should block those websites. It's not job of the US businesses nor US government to enforce another country's laws.

Let me put this very simply to you: if I go to a country where the age of consent is 14 and start a business streaming child porn to America, I should be stopped from doing that. This is the same principle with a lesser offence.

You will stopped from doing that by American law. The difference between this and that is that Ofcom believes it can regulate conduct that never touches British soil. Ofcom notably is not setting up a "great firewall," but instead sending takedown notices to websites about content that is already blocked from British IPs.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#357

Post by mothballed »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #351
James_K wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US businesses can get bent. Half my country is rotten and hollowed out, all the shops replaced by Amazon. Screw them. Uber wants to come over here and put our local cabbies out of work, then bring them all back on lower wages with higher fees. Screw off. Air B&B destroys affordable housing all across Europe and turns cities into tourist hell. Oracle comes over here and they're trying their damnedest to get their hand…

If your countrymen want to use Uber, Air B&B, Oracle, and Facebook, should you try to stop them from doing it, even if you personally dislike those companies? You are making the same argument that Trump is making with the tariffs. Personally, while I can see some good arguments for protectionism, I'd rather have the choice to decide whether or not I want to buy Chinese products, rather than the government making the…

Closer to the point: having Uber in a place with a licensed taxi trade is basically the same thing as removing licensing and then granting a monopoly on one business to operate taxis.

So you two are on completely separate frames of thought. One party sees it as a matter of choice, the other sees it as removing choice because one party has a monopoly on avoiding the regulations.

The issue here is IMO more so that the taxi driver should be able to operate a taxi business without a license without having to go through Uber. Ultimately what is happening in a lot of places is the guys with medallions will basically use agents of the state to violently enforce their racket (which Uber breaks up, but then monopolizes), or alternatively in some places in Latin America the entrenched taxi drivers will simply shoot to kill their competitors that don't have cartel sanctioned 'medallions.'

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#358

Post by mrguyorama »

james_in_the_uk wrote: post #189
GardenLetter27 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cookie popups is such a painful representation of Europe tech in general. Like you can configure your browser to do whatever you want with cookies - blocking them all, blocking only third party ones, etc. - there is no need for government regulation here. But the legislators are completely tech illiterate and even the general public supports more interference and regulation.

It’s a bit of both. It’s not possible to rely on browser controls as-is, because they do not differentiate between necessary and optional cookies. Browser vendors could agree standards and implement them, exposing these to users and advertisers in a friendly way. But they haven’t shown any interest in doing this. I wonder why?

Without laws forcing companies to properly declare which cookies are "necessary", this control you imagine does nothing, as every company simply sets their advertising cookies as "necessary"

One of the hundreds of reasons do_not_track failed. You cannot do something that trusts the website operators, because they are egregiously untrustworthy.

The cookie banner everyone keeps bitching about is a direct example of this. No website is required to have a cookie banner. They choose to, because they know most users click "Yes to all", and then complain about the regulators, instead of the assholes asking you to consent to sharing your data with nearly a thousand third parties

And "browser vendors" will never do anything, because 90% of the market is a literal advertising behemoth, the rest of the market is owned by a company that makes money only when you do things not through the web browser.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#359

Post by jay_kyburz »

cyanydeez wrote: post #337
jay_kyburz wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its unreasonable for a government to ask company to abide by its laws if it want to do business with its citizens. Where I think they are going wrong is that they are trying to levy fines rather than just blocking the business. Oh, and the whole age verification thing is bonkers. I'm a parent of 2 teenagers, I don't think its asking too much for a parent to be responsible for what children see and do on…

The problem with relying on parents is that they're either reckless or simply unable to prevent the kids from smoking. By the time they're teenagers, it's pretty easy for them to access anything on the internet regardless of the controls implemented. 4chan is a cesspool, and society is worse off letting it fester, but you arn't solving this problem by "personal responsibility" of parents.

I think smoking is a little different for a few reasons.

It's physically addictive with harsh withdrawal symptoms that makes it difficult to quit; and it has significant healthcare costs for the wider community when smokers eventually get sick and die prematurely.

Nobody is going to get addicted and die prematurely from reading 4chan. Cleaning what you consider a cesspool is not the job of the government. These laws are about kids stumbling into the cesspool before they are ready.

Parents can choose to just not give their kids phones till they are 12 or 13 (highschool). Before that, internet access is on locked down devices in the family room with somebody else around.

Personally I think once your kids are about 13-14 you have probably had your chance to pass on your morals, they need to be mentally prepared to encounter bad stuff on the internet and deal with it.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#360

Post by manquer »

mothballed wrote: post #347
kjellsbells wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important correction: s/civil servants/lawmakers/g Civil servants didn't create, write, or pass the law. They simply got handed a flaming, bad smelling paper bag and got told to implement it.

In this case no. Interestingly, in the US in agencies like the ATF the civil servants make the regulation and enforce it, binding as law. In immigration it's even crazier -- civil servants create the policies, enforce them, and act as the judge.

The Chevron doctrine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....

This concept in the U.S. is also evolving since 2024 decision reducing the strength of this legal protection.

Practically all countries have some version of this, few hundred lawmakers and their staff cannot reasonably set every single policy and micromanage its execution for every for government function.

Civil servants always have a lot of say in direction of governance even if not directly enshrined in law or recognized by the court.

The classic 80s satire Yes, Minister is good illustration of the parliamentary version of how it happens in say England even if not enshrined in law so to speak.

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