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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

alecmuffett.com

671–680 of 817 posts

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These slowly degrade societies, like it or not. So, thought crimes?

Setting aside whether it’s true, that’s not a thought crime by any definition.

The argument as I understood it was 4chan's existence, degrades society.

4chan's whole gimmick is that you can say whatever you want, because you don't have to identify yourself when you say it. It's a way for Internet denizens scream their intrusive thoughts into the pseudovoid.

If expressing intrusive thoughts makes society worse, and should be controlled. That, arguably makes expressing thoughts a crime. You shouldn't be allowed to think or say thing.

I guess you could insist that thinking is different from expressing, and that thinking is fine as long as you repress the inate human trait and desire of expression... But I feel that's a stupid line in the sand to draw given my intent was to point out 4chan doesn't make society worse, tolerating ideas you don't like generally improves society. It's how you behave that matters.

In other words, If 4chan didn't exist, people would behave better.

If you weren't exposed to those thoughts and ideas, you would behave better.

If you didn't have a thought....

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is much like the US in that democratic processes are co-opted and undermined by special interests to the point that governments engage in suppression of free speech and mass surveillance against their populations. (What’s unique to the UK is that it’s government is largely subservient to the US in the international dragnet.) We are all human and share the same human rights regardless of our nationality.

> The UK is much like the US in that democratic processes are co-opted and undermined by special interests A judge will not find this comment amusing, or a justification for breaking the law. You can, of course, engage in civil disobedience, but keep in mind it doesn't shield you from consequences.

Precisely, mine is a moral not legal argument against shallow moral appeals to “sovereignty”.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#673
post #375
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USAID manipulate narratives on all popular multimedia and social media sites. I wouldn't be surprised to read that on 4chan, but on HN ... we need some credible citations. :)

Some of the text and PDF's by congress discuss some of the findings but there are other sites that reported on it in the last couple years. [1] Some documents try to justify it [2]. There are countless more documents, mostly in PDF form because people can't HTML for whatever reason. Just use "site:.gov usaid 4chan" on Google. I have more of them bookmarked on my workstation. There are also disinformation documents to…

I should know better than to give an answer that may include people not on the left. It might be time to put my sites back online.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#674
post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government got 33% of the vote. Please tell me how I can vote for a sensible government.

The government as it is, was elected by 100% of the vote. The party heading the Executive branch had fewer than 100% of the vote.

That is not the case. The government was elected with 33.7% of the vote.

You were trying to make a distinction between "government" and "executive" -- that's not how it works here, matey. His Majesty's Government is the party in power (or whichever grouping of MPs can hold the confidence of parliament), it is not all the other MPs - they are the opposition.

We don't have an "Executive". We have His Majesty's Government, they head all the departments, they command the civil service, they control the legislative timetable. The rest of the MPs and Lords are just plebs who get to vote on things. The opposition don't get to propose legislation, except when the Government feels generous and lets them (opposition days).

FPTP creates individual constituencies of roughly 70,000 voters, and the candidate who gets the most votes in one constituency wins a seat. The other candidates in that constituency get nothing, and all votes for them are completely wasted (unlike in other voting schemes). Candidates are usually a member of a political party. The party with the most seats gets first opportunity to form a government.

The 2024 general election was won by Labour with 9,708,716 votes (33.70%) out of 28,924,725 cast. Turnout was 60%, there could've been 48,208,507 possible votes.

The 2019 general election was won by the Conservatives with 13,966,454 votes (43.63%). 2017 was 42.3%. 2015 was 36.8%. 2010 was 59.1%. 2005 was 35.2%. 2001 was 40.7%. You can see the last result was the lowest vote share in decades.

And yet, 33.7% of the vote nets you 100% of the power. Thanks, FPTP!

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#675

> The [Online Safety] Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom And so they should, within the borders of the UK. It's illegal to own unlicensed firearms in the UK. In the US, it is legal. UK authorities can prevent ownership of firearms in the UK via penalties, prevent firms from selling firearms in the UK, and set up import controls to prevent pe…

Strange that this is framed as a national sovereignty issue not an issue of UK government’s overwrought free speech repression and its utilization of corporate bullying to that end. This is exactly the thing we don’t want democratic governments to do - congeal with corporate power against their people. Appealing to legality when the laws are themselves unjust is not a defense. The online safety act is broad and vague…

In few years agreeing with you will be considered unsafe

Consider this a glomar response.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange that this is framed as a national sovereignty issue not an issue of UK government’s overwrought free speech repression and its utilization of corporate bullying to that end. This is exactly the thing we don’t want democratic governments to do - congeal with corporate power against their people. Appealing to legality when the laws are themselves unjust is not a defense. The online safety act is broad and vague…

It is an issue of national sovereignty because the UK is trying to force foreign civilians to enforce their laws outside of their jurisdiction for free, by way of bullying, threats, and illegal fines. What the UK does within their own borders is their business. They don't have any right to force foreign entities to censor themselves or tl block UK citizens, as if that's even a technically feasible request. The UK's f…

This is all theatrical. They already know that what they want is a section on what can be see or not within its borders. After this case has been processed and maybe some others some genius will say that internet should be a subset of the whole internet. That's nothing new. For years during war times the post office had followed letters from and to specific destinations/people for conference.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you know this, but when you put a website online there isn't a big switch that says "TURN ON TO SERVE TO UK" When a resource exists on the internet, it is available to everyone . That's how the internet works. There is no mechanism by which to exclude any given country. You can try to geolocate the IP for every individual visitor, but that's a ridiculous burden for website operators and it also doesn'…

> I don't know if you know this, but when you put a website online there isn't a big switch that says "TURN ON TO SERVE TO UK" No, but it's a relatively trivial setting to block IP ranges, especially for a service the size of 4chan. > You can try to geolocate the IP for every individual visitor, but that's a ridiculous burden for website operators and it also doesn't even work. It's not a ridiculous burden (the range…

It is a strange definition of relatively trivial to ask each and every person on the planet who has served content to be aware of all constantly changing local judicial content restrictions, to identify the location of their users, and to identify which specific bits of the content they are serving is problematic.

It is a massive global undertaking involving untold collective man hours developing, implementing, and updating. They may as well be adding an invisible 1/2 pent tax on every man woman and child like some sort of hidden global sovereign.

This is a war they lost long ago and they keep trying to take power to which they are not entitled. The correct answer is like the Boston tea party dumping their imperial assumptions into the ocean.

If they want to block content they should take the responsibility to do so themselves. Even just blocking advertisers who fund problem sites would probably take care of whatever problem they are trying to solve.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#678
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its cute that you think Europe has the ability to replace those services.

It's cute that you think anyone is going to kiss your American ass.

Top 3 messaging apps in europo

1) whatsapp (facebook)

2) telegram (incorporated in dubai)

3) messenger (also facebook lmao)

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the case in the US. For instance, if you take a picture of a patient you are treating, go home and send that picture to your wife and say "treated this lady for syphilis today" you are violating HIPAA despite the fact you're telling 100% truth, conveying it privately with no expectation or desire it will ever impact the victim, and literally are only conveying it as information to be consumed and…

That is breaking a law that protects patients' privacy. Nobody should distribute private information given to them under an agreement to maintain privacy. Nobody is forced to abide by HIPPA, without their consent. Nobody is forced to sign a HIPAA agreement. In fact, nobody is forced to work in the medical professions, or look at private medical data, in the US. And no law prohibits asking a patient or caregivers if t…

This is a recklessly misinformed understanding of HIPAA. It applies even if you've never signed a "HIPAA agreement."

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#680
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its cute that you think Europe has the ability to replace those services.

We've got plenty of servers, electricity, network hardware and people who code. We are missing the oxygen in the room, which American services all collectively sucked out. Banning those services will open some potential for innovation.

I think what your missing is a regulatory framework that wont immediately screw you. Just look at how far behind you are with AI. AI is nascent so you have no excuse about "oxygen" or whatever.
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