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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

alecmuffett.com

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Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#441

Post by tremon »

flumpcakes wrote: post #429
senorrib wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t possibly be breaking UK law because the service isn’t even being provided in the UK. UK users are accessing US servers to get service.

> UK users are accessing US servers to get service. That's called offering the service to UK users. I don't host my blog in 165 times in each country in order to let people to access my content/services.

Is your claim that you have a multinational business, just because of a single webpage? Do you file sales tax reports in all 165 countries?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#442

Post by NicuCalcea »

trothamel wrote: post #403
flumpcakes wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have 'jurisdiction' because it applies to the citizens: it is offering a service to UK citizens. If I had a website operated outside of the US, where you can download US citizens private medical records and phone conversations, I would be liable to breaking US law. If you do not want to be held accountable to a regions laws, then you do not offer a service to or deal with data that relates to that regions cit…

Simply offering a service to UK citizens isn't enough to provide jurisdiction. If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand. That's what's happening here - a webserver is operating entirely out of the UK, with no nexus. UK citizens send requests to it - just like all other countries citizens do, so eith…

> If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand.

You are allowed to sell lemonade to British tourists. But if you're shipping lemonade to the UK, you are subject to UK lemonade regulations. That doesn't mean that the UK has jurisdiction over your business and can shut it down or anything like that, but if you travel to the UK or UK banks handle your transactions, they have the right to seize funds and shipments, close your accounts or detain you if you set foot in the UK. Your choice are: follow UK regulations; stop shipping lemonade to the UK; or continue as you were, never go to the UK, and know that the UK can always ban shipments from your stand.

The US does the same thing all the time, and even worse[1]. Lots of piracy sites located in jurisdictions where US copyright laws don't apply are seized by US federal agencies and replaced with a notice about piracy. Those sites haven't broken any laws in the countries they're hosted in, they have no legal presence in the US, and yet the domains are banned/seized and administrators detained if they ever step foot on US soil. The UK is not threatening to seize anyone's site.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_In_Our_Sites

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#443

Post by hunterpayne »

topspin wrote: post #383
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 f…

Sure, that would require the Democrats win an election first. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Its not like Trump is the most inspiring candidate. When you lose 2 out of 3 to him, perhaps time to take a long look in the mirror. But no, the dems will probably run someone like AOC next time and lose badly. Even worse, once 2030 comes around there is a new census. This matters because enough people have moved from blue to red states that Republicans will no longer have to win any swing states to win both the House and POTUS. Unless something dramatic changes, like say the Dems run a southern governor instead of a coastal progressive, then we are looking at quite a while before we have to worry about that.

PS Don't yell at me about this, I'm just explaining the situation.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#444

Post by jay_kyburz »

mikkupikku wrote: post #377
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…

If you honestly believe you can control what your two teens see and do on the internet, you've either got them chained up in a closet, or you're wrong.

There is a fairly big gap between chained in the closet and completely free access to the internet. There is also a lot difference between catching a glimpse of some porn and spending hours in their bedroom exploring the darkest corners of the internet.

I don't have them chained up, but I'm also not concerned they are become radicalized, or damaging themselves watching snuff films and goatse.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#445

Post by tremon »

wannadingo wrote: post #331
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?

I think he is saying that once US citizens return to the US, then they will be arrested.

If they were talking about the US arresting US citizens, then the equivalent would be Ofcom sending a fine to the UK visitors of 4chan. That's clearly not what they're doing.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#446

Post by hunterpayne »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #243
FabCH wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes UK deploys technical measures to prevent their own citizens from accessing the website, which costs more political capital than fining a corporation. Or makes it illegal to access the site, which is even more unpopular. The difference is significant.

Realistically, UK is a big market for 4chan, but is 4chan big enough for UK? What share of its 70M+ population will flip their vote because of this specific case? How many people will just switch to Reddit or something else and won’t even connect that block to any political party?

No, it really isn't. Plus the free advertising this gets them will be worth more than any market other than the US.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#447

Post by sib »

array_key_first wrote: post #259
ceejayoz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke or reference I'm missing?

No it's not a joke at all. When you buy wifi, they already make sure you're an adult. They ask for proof of residence, you sign a contract. Children cannot buy wifi. Go ahead and try - no ISP is going to write a contract with a child. Wifi, like tobacco and alcohol, is already age restricted. The problem is the adults buying it then turn around and just... Hand it to children. That's not the fault of the law or socie…

What are you talking about when you say "when you buy Wi-Fi"? If you walk into a coffee shop, or a hotel, or just about anywhere, you get Wi-Fi for free. Are you talking about buying mobile service from an operator?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#448

Post by estimator7292 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #394
flumpcakes wrote: post #352

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 practi…

> why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable? Literally because the entity is not under the jurisdiction of the UK. The UK can force domestic companies to block the website but they cant force the website itself to do anything. The claims of fines against 4chan are therefore nonsensical. Probably just part of the legal proceedings prior to blocking the site I guess but still strange to see.

"Offering to" is a nonsense term. The website exists on the open internet regardless of jurisdictional borders. A UK citizen must actively go to the website, initiating a connection from within the UK and requesting data from an IP address that may or may not have some kind of relationship with geography.

4Chan isn't popping up unbidden on people's phones. Wither a UK citizen chooses to visit a website is no business of the website operator.

To say that 4Chan is somehow responsible for the actions of unknowably many private citizens is absurd. If the UK wants to enforce internet censorship within their borders, that's their own business. Putting pressure on wholly independent foreign businesses for the crime of existing is not reasonable. This is just as bad as US credit card companies censoring adult material from the entire global online economy.

They're trying to censor large parts of the global internet for everyone, not just their citizens. If they cared about UK citizens so much, they'd do something like proactively blocking noncompliant websites to force them to immediately either comply or fuck off. They should be trying to protect their citizens instead of trying to bully foreign companies they have no jurisdiction over. It's their responsibility to enforce their laws, not the US courts.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#449

Post by hunterpayne »

mrguyorama wrote: post #350
ceejayoz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's what the advertising-dependent implementers who deliberately made it shittier than necessary (stuff like "you have to decline each of our 847 ad partners individually") want you to think, at least. It's mostly malicious compliance.

The funniest part of the banners is that most websites just buy a service from a third party to manage compliance, and some of those third party service providers have added "decline all" style buttons and one click solutions to all that use them, and are even friendly enough to save that choice in one of the "necessary" cookies. But people (like my girlfriend) still click "Allow all" because they don't seem to reali…

Oh, its funnier than that. The most sophisticated data trackers don't even use cookies anymore. Anyone you would have to worry about getting that data hasn't used cookies in years. So the entire exercise punishes small companies that don't do anything with the data except pre-populate fields for you. But big tech companies that the law was targeting don't have to change a thing.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#450

Post by estimator7292 »

flumpcakes wrote: post #352

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 practi…

Putting the burden on site operators to geoblock UK users is not only placing an incredible burden on individual operators, it doesn't even work.

It is not the responsibility of foreign companies to enforce or even acknowledged the UK's laws. If the UK has a problem, they have tools to solve it on their own soil. If they want to enforce their laws they need to pay for it.

The UK is trying to bully and scare foreign website operators regardless of scale or type of business into paying to enforce UK laws outside of the UK.

If they want a website blocked, the only way to make that work is to block it and pay for it themselves.

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