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Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

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Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you're trying to make money through your website... well sorry you're doing business in those countries. Say, I'm the provider... well sorry, you (the customer) are doing business with a foreign country (mine) and you should do it in accordance with YOUR laws about YOUR country's foreign trade. That's the only way to properly conform to jurisdiction, amirite? In other words, UK has no jurisdiction over US bu…

> That's the only way to properly conform to jurisdiction, amirite? No, you're not? It's pretty obvious that if you try to, say, sell illegal drugs to my citizens, I as a country will come after you even if it's legal on your side. The internet blurred the lines because you don't "show up" in the buyer's country but there's nothing new here: both seller and buyer need to respect the law.

The thing about the Internet is it made cross-border interactions common and trivial.

If party A and B are interacting in jurisdictions A and B, which party has to abide by which jurisdiction's laws?

Is the consumer moving into the producer's jurisdiction or is the producer moving into the consumer's jurisdiction?

Laws tend to apply more to the business than the consumer around the world and it's probably fair that this remains to be true, but really it is a hard problem when to parties separated by a border are just sending messages back and forth and you're trying to figure out who has to follow which laws.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…but how enforceable would the fine be? They pull out and have no UK assets to seize.

> They pull out and have no UK assets to seize. How do you expect the "pull out" to happen? They must have had a UK bank account or similar, whose transfers won't get approved as they're trying to escape from criminal prosecution. Or they'll work with the US to ensure responsible individuals are held responsible. It isn't exactly the first time someone/something commits crime in a country then try to escape, there is…

> Or they'll work with the US to ensure responsible individuals are held responsible.

May US voters put America First over international law.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#673
post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks from another chart like 21% of revenue is recurring, so $10 million annually for Europe. Convert that to GBP and you get about £7.5 million. Figure that the UK accounts for about 15% of the European economy and assume it contributes to Wikipedia at about an equal share. That's about £1.125 million in estimated annual recurring contributions from the UK. You said 10-100/mo, so let's assume £55/mo or £660/year…

I'm surprised you're reiterating surprise: you were off by two orders of magnitude, and the initial surprise only had purpose as a rhetorical device, it wasn't based on anything ( why is > 10 surprising? 70M people in UK...)

Yes, that was just reiterating the initial surprise which as you suggest was rhetorical mostly.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m equally baffled by all of these calls for extensive regulation and enforcement of Internet rules on HN. Someone in the comment section is unironically calling for imprisoning parents who let their kids use the internet. There are suggestions throughout the comment section calling for ID checks on websites. Is nobody thinking about what this actually means? Do you really want the entire internet to require ID vali…

Requiring businesses that provide products or services that we've already decided should be age gated to check ID is not the same as requiring all sites to check ID. Stores that sell porn or drugs or guns in person need to check ID. That hasn't resulted in all stores checking ID, or even stores that sometimes check ID (e.g. grocers selling alcohol) checking it all of the time. They only do for restricted items. No re…

> No reason web businesses can't do the same.

These aren't equivalent though. I can flash my ID to someone to buy cigarettes at my gas station and reasonably believe that no third party is storing my ID. The clerk looks at it (or scans it? I have actually never purchased anything requiring an ID before), and I go about my merry way.

If I go online to consume adult content, I definitely do not want my identity to be associated with my proclivities, and I certainly don't trust any third party to handle my ID with the sensitivity it ought to have.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was providing evidence that there was an issue. Not trying to take a side. You can retract your f**. Yes there is a debate now and it is very open, and there are many reports that it was not so open and people were hurt for a long time. Was that political cover up? Each can decide - but I think the debate shows there was a real issue.

[flagged]

Here is the results of the following Google search “uk coverup of rape gangs” and the results

https://www.thefp.com/p/muslim-grooming-gangs-cover-up-keir-...

https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/06/18/the-grooming-ga...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/17/what-is-the-casey-r...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/16/grooming-gan...

https://news.sky.com/story/grooming-gangs-scandal-timeline-w...

How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f247768ad7912bdc

https://theweek.com/crime/the-grooming-gangs-scandal-explain...

https://womenagainstrape.net/statement-rape-and-grooming-gan...

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#676
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not specific to the UK: many developed countries are cracking down on Internet businesses. There's going to be an awful lot of regulation, and it will be incompatible between different countries. The one-model-fits-the-whole-world style of business is over: you're going to be confined to national borders again. The opinion polls are clear: the normies want this.

> The opinion polls are clear: the normies want this. Giving normies the vote was a mistake.

Found Moldbug's alt

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Here is the results of the following Google search “uk coverup of rape gangs” and the results https://www.thefp.com/p/muslim-grooming-gangs-cover-up-keir-... https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/06/18/the-grooming-ga... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/17/what-is-the-casey-r... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/16/grooming-gan... https://news.sky.com/story/grooming-gangs-scandal-timeline-w... How th…

None of your sources back up the claim.

Straight up FP is lying, so you’re off to a fucking awful start. You can verify this against the News Agent interview I’ve mentioned for the third time now. Watch it on YouTube.

I don’t have an Economist account but it doesn’t seem to mention coverup in be lede. Given it would be the biggest political story in Britain, I doubt it says coverup by politicians.

Al Jazeera talks about the inquiry being ordered, still no coverup.

Guardian talks about the disgustingly bad reporting standards of the police. Still no coverup by politicians.

Sky News is a timeline of inquiries. Literal opposite of a fucking coverup.

Telegraph is talking about the inquiry that Labour eventually launched. It’s lying about the use of the term coverup: no abuse was covered up by politicians by running, or not, an inquiry.

The Week is an explainer for the scandal, no coverup by politicians.

Women Against Rape are talking about the police, not politicians. Anyone knows, and I already mentioned, the failures of the police here.

Did you seriously just waste your time finding links you obviously didn’t read to still fail to answer a simple fucking question:

Where is the evidence that POLITICIANS covered up child abuse rings? That was the flagged comment and you have failed to back the claim.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s you who are mixing things. Putting up a website outside the UK and “deciding to provide services in the UK” are two decidedly different things. UK legal imperialism is self centered and unrealistic and undermines speech the world over.

I’m guessing that Imgur happily accepted the ad revenue from UK users while it served them images. If you genuinely were “not providing services” to UK users, you wouldn’t do that. I’m not happy with extraterritorial assertions over internet services either, but you can’t wish them away with sophistry about “we’re not providing services to them!” if you’re happy to take their money and serve them a page in exchange.…

> if you’re happy to take their money

The law doesn’t require that they take any money, and you’re merely guessing they are. Weak

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken, the proposed system isn't centralized. The IDs only exist in the wallet. The wallet uses Digital Verification Services (DVS) to poll APIs in front of the data the government already holds on you. These services check details you enter against that data and return cryptographic signatures for each. The wallet puts these together as IDs in a bespoke way, depending on what you need to prove. You can hav…

> You're mistaken, the proposed system isn't centralized. The IDs only exist in the wallet. That's a password manager or authenticator app. You don't need a government to do anything to have that. > Some of these signed proofs can be disclosed using Zero Knowledge Proofs (a cryptographic means of demonstrating something without demonstrating anything else) which would actually make it harder to 'correlate' you in the…

I don't dispute your general sentiment that the ZK terminology is abused. However, at least one serious attempt exists to deploy a real ZKP system.

Specifically, our system [1] is available as open source [2] and work is underway to implement it in the EU age verification app [3]. I understand that this thread is about the UK and not the EU, and I make no claims about the UK. The system is not theory, but it is already shipping in Google Wallet [4] and in the Open Wallet Foundation multipaz system [5].

[1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/2010

[2] https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk

[3] https://ageverification.dev/av-doc-technical-specification/d...

[4] https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-id...

[5] https://github.com/openwallet-foundation/multipaz

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring businesses that provide products or services that we've already decided should be age gated to check ID is not the same as requiring all sites to check ID. Stores that sell porn or drugs or guns in person need to check ID. That hasn't resulted in all stores checking ID, or even stores that sometimes check ID (e.g. grocers selling alcohol) checking it all of the time. They only do for restricted items. No re…

> No reason web businesses can't do the same. These aren't equivalent though. I can flash my ID to someone to buy cigarettes at my gas station and reasonably believe that no third party is storing my ID. The clerk looks at it (or scans it? I have actually never purchased anything requiring an ID before), and I go about my merry way. If I go online to consume adult content, I definitely do not want my identity to be a…

At least in the US, some grocery stores will scan IDs when someone buys alcohol. In some states they are required to do so. I would be very surprised if they didn't then store that information. As far as I know there's no law against it, and they'll gather whatever they can. Firearms dealers are required to keep information about their customers. In contrast, the recent laws here that I've looked at all make it illegal for the service to store information related to online age verification. So you actually have better privacy protections with online adult content.
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