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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

alecmuffett.com

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Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#381

Post by Nevermark »

mothballed wrote: post #338
Balinares wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's absolute until it's something you don't like. Gotcha.

[flagged]

Free speech doesn't include the freedom to use speech to do illegal harms (that are themselves, not speech).

In other words, "Speech + Offense" is prosecutable, for illegal "Offense".

You don't get a hall pass to use speech to commit a crime, and not be culpable for the crime.

Fraud, libel, harassment, giving false testimony in court, colluding with competitors to artificially increase prices, broadcasting a copyright work, signing your name (just your name!) to an illegal contract, etc. all may involve speech, but the offense is defined by the non-speech functional impact.

Convincing someone to kill someone for you is not legal, because murder is not legal.

People generally have to prove that the speech was intentionally or recklessly geared to cause harm to others.

Although many cases may be clear, there isn't a mathematical separation between the two, so we have courts and precedence, and further reviews, as the practical means of drawing the line.

And that is true for the vast majority of laws and rights.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#382

Post by EarlKing »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #201
krapp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a "containment board." Nothing actually gets contained.

They're correct though, that was /pol/s origin story. That Containment worked roughly as well as the one in Chernobyl though.

Objection: The Chernobyl containment building generally speaking does its job. /pol/, on the other hand, leaks like an incontinent old man in a retirement home. "Containment" only works if you have jannies that actually sweep it up. 4chan, much like Voat, suffers a problem of people spamming up boards and threads with unrelated crap that is ostensibly supposed to be kept to other boards/threads (like /pol/). The reputation they have is a consequence of that unmanageability (just like Voat ultimately suffered from when they embraced Reddit's cast-offs and suddenly had people talking about "shitskins" and "day of the rope" everywhere).

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#383

Post by topspin »

tasuki wrote: post #35

> The Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom, and this expressly includes conducting investigations into, and imposing penalties for, non-compliance by providers of online services with their duties under the Act. […] The Act expressly anticipates that it will have extra-territorial effect I don't see anything wrong here: Sure, Ofcom can have th…

> It's just that this... legal authority... isn't quite enforceable outside the UK jurisdiction.

That appears to be the widely held understanding in this particular case.

I'm not so sure. This isn't a strictly black letter law matter. It probably should be, and I'd prefer that it was, but I see political angles to this.

Right now, it is improbable that Trump's DOJ has any interest in doing Ofcom's bidding in the US for UK "online safety" violations, real or imagined. But a world where the US DOJ might does exist. We're the political vectors aligned differently; say, for example, Ofcom was pursuing 4chan for "supporting" ISIS in the UK, I think few people would be surprised learn that Trump's DOJ was eager to "investigate," and perhaps synthesize some indictable offenses, and perhaps even extradite.

Have we not seen, and are we not seeing now, ample examples of similar abuses of power?

So I see much of the rhetoric, and also this lawyer's flippancy, as naïve. Given the optimal set of office holders and sufficient moral panic over some matter, Ofcom et al. could very well have real leverage in the US.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#384

Post by [deleted] »

riazrizvi wrote: post #269
watwut wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under no circumstances should be US businesses treated as authorities. They are not mom nor should have any kind of leadership position.

No you’re right. Instead of a multi-billion dollar organization supporting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people, serving directly their millions of customers, we would be better off running this with a team of Oxbridge literature and PPE alumni, armed with a hodgepodge of constituent letters accompanied by stiff emails by one or two members of parliament funded by god knows who, who otherwise have no sk…

[deleted]

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#385

Post by HeckFeck »

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…

I've sympathy for what you're proposing - on-shoring our own tech - but the Online Safety Act is a terrible law and it should've been repealed yesterday. It will do nothing to advance those aims, and plenty to stifle innovation in the UK tech space. Ofcom can get fucked.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#386

Post by EarlKing »

jeroenhd wrote: post #321
treesknees wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan, the owner/company, does not operate out of the UK. It’s a US company. They are only bound to US laws. Just because UK internet users are able to establish a network connection to 4chan’s server via ISP peering agreements does not mean 4chan are subject to UK law.

As long as 4chan sells 4chan passes to UK citizens, they do business in the UK. They sell using crypto so there's not much for the UK to go after, but they do more than just "be available".

Great! If this is so, then you should be able to prove that UK citizens are using crypto to purchase their services and that 4chan is expressly aware of this fact. I'm sure this proof will be forthcoming presently...

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#388

Post by hdgvhicv »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #20
hdgvhicv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government wanted to do something it would enforce optional controls for the bill payer, and provide decent training (via videos and in person in libraries) on how to use parental controls. I tried setting up parental controls on Fortnite and it was a nightmare, having threats multiple accounts with multiple providers, it felt very much designed to force people to go “ahh forget it”.

> it would enforce optional controls for the bill payer, They do; in the UK, if you want to have access to porn, you need to tell your ISP and they will unblock it. Of course, that's a game of whack-a-mole because you can render porn in Minecraft servers or join one of many communities on Whatsapp or Discord if needs be. It mainly blocks the well-known bigger porn sites.

In which case there is no need for anything else.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#389

Post by jolmg »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #369
jolmg wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You're showing yourself to believe that America can regulate conduct that never touches American soil.

America won't go after you. America will go after Americans who access your site and American ISPs will block your site. That's not America regulating your behavior. You're still free to do whatever you want. If you enter America, there may also be consequences, but you don't need to enter America.

> If you enter America, there may also be consequences

That isn't much different. Say an adult American drinks alcohol in America; then they travel to a country where alcohol is illegal. Should they be prosecuted in that country for having drank in America?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#390

Post by dragonwriter »

BeetleB wrote: post #308
tremon wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The equivalent is the US threatening to arrest the operators of those venues when they set foot on US soil . But in any case, this is different, as the US has only declared these activities as illegal in the US . They haven't enacted laws saying you cannot gamble outside the US. When it comes to antiterrorism stuff, it's a totally different story. If I go to the Middle East and provide money to an organization on the…

> When it comes to antiterrorism stuff, it's a totally different story. If I go to the Middle East and provide money to an organization on the US terrorist list, then yes - I can definitely be prosecuted for it if I enter US jurisdiction. And it goes even further - I don't need to enter their jurisdiction. The US can just have me extradited if there is a treaty.

Moreover, the US government can have you seized and brought to the US without a treaty (or even in violation of a treaty), which may become a diplomatic and/or international legal issue between the US and the state where you were seized, and may subject the agents doung the seizing to personal legal difficulty in that state, but has no bearing on the validity of the criminal process brought against you once they haul you back to the US. See, e.g., U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992).

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