If 4chan continues to ignore Ofcom, the forum could be blocked in the UK. And 4chan could face even bigger fines totaling about $23 million or 10 percent of 4chan’s worldwide turnover, whichever is higher. 4chan also faces potential arrest and/or “imprisonment for a term of up to two years,” the lawsuit said.
British government fines an American company, based in America, for serving data from American servers that was compliant with American law.
This whole law is complete overreach. It’s like banning a book and then getting mad at the author when one of your citizens buys one on holiday and brings it back with them
I think Iran should fine the UK just as much for allowing the Satanic verses to be sold since that novel are banned in Iran.
Any argument they give is the same argument why the 4chan shit is laughable.
Yeah, how come the EU gets to regulate American services with all their data privacy laws? The EU is a tool of the governments to assert control over us, the common people. Plain and simple
Ofcom, famously a part of EU since brexit
The UK hasn’t been part of the EU for a long ass time. Have you been living under a rock?
They have no way of making them pay.
4chan also faces potential arrest and/or “imprisonment for a term of up to two years,” the lawsuit said.
I wanna see how a website would be sent to jail.
Clearly they’re after the notorious hacker known as 4chan
So then… Potential arrest and imprisonment for 4chan for no proven damage. Meanwhile, Trump can visit the King.
The global push for censorship is accelerating and not nearly enough people are woke to it.
Is it even possible for Ofcom to legally fine 4chan for these issues? How does a company in the UK fine a US company?
It works the same way they can fine domestic businesses: Pay up or we’ll stop you from doing any more business in this country.
In the context of a website like 4chan that means pay the fine or get blocked by every UK based ISP.
I don’t think that would deter any of their user base.
Bilateral agreements may exist.
The argument 4chan uses is laughable. “Freedom of speech of every American?” Tere is no such protection in the US right now.
No one is watching the news? Trump is killing freedom of speech. Anyone dares to advocate equality is getting fired or estorcised. All rainbow, trans or minority rights signs are being eliminated. Our rainbow sidewalk in my city was repainted. Diversity programs are dismantled. Any minority names program is being renamed. Less black people are being hired in the white house than ever.
Even now som states require you to prove your identity before your can log into Internet.
American invention? American right? Lol.
I agree, but letting a foreign government dictate what you can and cannot say on your site is dangerous. If 4chan capitulates then countless other sites are on the chopping block.
I agree, but letting a foreign government dictate what you can and cannot say on your site is dangerous. If 4chan capitulates then countless other sites are on the chopping block.
4chan is likely using this to take it to the courts.
hope they write their legal battle in green txt
be me
American’t social mediatard
Britbongs demand money
Notmyproblem.png
> be me
> mfwThe defense rests.
This is a case of stupid laws that still don’t understand the internet (35+ years in to wide use, mofos)
If an http GET request initiated from country A traverses routers and wires around the globe to grab some data from a server in country B, then we have to accept that the owners of the server are not “operating in country A” and in fact the user in country A is responsible for import.
If some laws in country A have a problem with this, then they should unplug their internet wires at the border, or at least learn how to use them and/or govern their citizens.
All that is tongue in cheek to say they can fuck right off.
Blocking america as a whole would do the uk some good tbh
If some laws in country A have a problem with this, then they should unplug their internet wires at the border, or at least learn how to use them and/or govern their citizens.
What used to be called The Great Firewall of China. It used to be unthinkable for western countries.
You can’t blame this on old people. This is only happening now that the Boomers are on the way out. People who sent international letters or made international phone calls were aware that they were communicating with a different country with different laws. I think we are seeing this now, because now we have people who experience the internet as something happening on their own phone, at their location.
Funnily enough the CIA (yes, the CIA) was largely involved in keeping the internet a free and open space for all, heck they even contributed encryption algorithms to keep data private and such …
The reason why the free internet existed for so long was because it was a big ideological project for the US. (the internet is the space of all ideas and as such represents the platonic/christian concept of heaven). It’s only now ending because it’s served its purpose. The people have exchanged ideas worldwide, and that only needs to happen twice, similarly to how you can only infect yourself with the same virus once (because the second infection does way less impact), you can only infect yourself with the same idea once. So, once the worldwide ideas are exchanged, the internet serves very little purpose anymore.
The boomers are not on their way out. We have the exact same politicians in power that we had 30 fucking years ago.
They’re retiring or dying of old age soon, they think now’s the time to shit all over the floor and trash the place.
They’re retiring
Retirement is when it’s about time to get into big politics. Most politicians on higher levels are 60+ y.o.
UK cabinet is mainly GenXers. I didn’t count exactly, but Boomers still seem to outnumber Millennials. Definitely on the way out, though.
I wouldn’t mind the politicians from 30 years ago, who stayed away from this bullshit.
But thirty years ago I was half my height
Yeah it’s a stupid law and they were told it wouldn’t work by industry experts. But the politicians that were in power when all this was first been decided were Conservatives and therefore arrogant and of the opinion that if they don’t like something, it’s realities responsibility to reconfigure itself.
Then Labour got in and for some reason implemented the stupid law anyway despite having heard none of the consultations, and of course now it turns out that the consultations told them not to do it. Now I’m sure the industry experts would have been ignored anyway but Labour look really daft now.
They have basically accepted that this law is unworkable and is basically going to be ignored by everyone, but they still have to go through all of the pantomime of trying to enforce it. I’m sure eventually they’ll quietly kill it because the whole thing has been such an embarrassment for them.
Yeah it’s a stupid law and they were told it wouldn’t work by industry experts.
You mean lobbyists?
I think it’s well established by now that this bunch of Labour politicians too are “arrogant and of the opinion that if they don’t like something, it’s realities responsibility to reconfigure itself”.
That would amongst other things neatly explain why they went around and implemented the stupid law.
It also doesn’t help that they’re being advised by people who don’t understand the world anymore and who’s last real contribution was probably in the 1970s. The fact that they can’t even capitalise on the fact that Boris Johnson has been found guilty of misappropriation of government funds is just ridiculous and shows how incompetent they are as politicians.
were Conservatives and therefore arrogant and of the opinion that if they don’t like something, it’s realities responsibility to reconfigure itself.
Which is exactly what they have done with tariffs in the US.
Th US has taken it to step further. Somehow they’ve managed to convince a significant junk of the population that a tariff is not a tax, and that the tariff is paid by the importing country, even though that’s not how tariffs work. They don’t require reality to actually do anything, they just require the populace to be mind numbingly stupid. Fortunately, they are.
It’s pretty ironic, the United States was founded on the back of unfair taxation, and yet financial literacy is probably lower in the US than it is in any other country in the world.
I remind people as much as possible that it is essentially a federal sales tax.
Also why the fuck would you piss off 4chan with their years of stalking, ddosing, swatting, etc of successful campaigns against anything they felt wrongged or even just annoyed them.
They were defanged many years ago by the new owners and raiding is banned.
Because these people have never even heard of it. The whole party is a bunch of absolute technophobes. You should see that online advertising it’s pathetic.
If 4chan make revenue by advertising UK goods and services to UK users, then they are very much operating in the UK. It’s not reasonable to make the argument that you should be able to do business with a country and opt out of its laws simply by running the physical servers abroad. We don’t tolerate it for wire fraud or CSAM, but nobody’s rushing out to defend the sovereign rights of child abusers and scammers.
I don’t agree with the Online Safety Act on its own terms, but this is a dud of an argument.
With wire fraud and csam, the activity is illegal in the host country as well as the target country, which is not the case here.
If 4chan make revenue by advertising UK goods and services to UK users, then they are very much operating in the UK.
By your logic, any website with advertising is operating in EVERY country worldwide.
Great analogy.
If you’re ok with this then imagine your local lemmy instance getting fined by China/Qatar/Thailand/etc for posting something breaking their laws.
Fine the phone company for allowing calls they don’t like.
Fuck yes, fine the phone companies who allow these spoofed phone number scammers to reach me. (/s… Mostly)
Actually they should close that loophole.
Flipside is EU trying to enforce GDPR and such
GDPR can only be enforced if the business wants to continue to do business in Europe. There are lots of non-European businesses that do not enforce GDPR rules but they can’t sell products or services in Europe.
But of course 4chan doesn’t sell any products or services anywhere, it’s not a business, so it’s a bit hard to see exactly how this could be enforced.
It’s selling 4chan passes, yeah it’s a thing unfortunately
Gross Domestic… Projekt Red?
If they operate in China then it seems legit. If they don’t operate in China it’s a non issue.
This might be stupid, but the corollary of your statement is that a sovereign nation can’t impose laws on foreign business…
That what you want?
Yes. You can impose as much laws as you can enforce them. Don’t want your citizens to buy anything from me, stop shipments at your border. Want to stop payments, talk to your banks. Want to stop access to my servers, block them at your routers.
Why the fuck should I enforce your rules for you? You made them, you figure out how you will make them work.
you being the UK government, in this case.
You shouldn’t… As you said, how are they going to make you?
Unironically yes. Otherwise the internet as we know it is very much over, and what we have instead is a mesh of country-nets.
I mean, what is actually “doing business” when it comes a simple web page or a forum for example? Merely existing and being reachable.
Otherwise the internet as we know it is very much over, and what we have instead is a mesh of country-nets.
which, TBH, doesn’t seem so bad to me. as an european, i’m personally sick of all the sick (as in, unwell) culture from america swapping over via the internet and poisoning people’s minds.
i mean, all the culture war is literally instigated by american capitalists to disrupt society and to disrupt the people’s coherence, to make them weaker and therefore easier to exploit.
If it wasn’t for continuous exposure to american influence, europe would long have drastic left-wing political reforms, i guess.
Yeah, and a county could say “you can’t do business in our county anymore” and block them
A country can ban dildos, but they don’t get to tell a foreign factory they can’t make dildos. If an importer orders dildos anyways, that’s between the importer and customs. Which in this case the importer is the ISP
My server is in the corned of my bedroom. How the hell can I be operating in China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, Norway, or The UK if my bedroom is in none of those countries?
That’s kind of exactly my point? If China came to you and said you owe us fines, why would you voluntarily do so?
Why would a local Lemmy instance ever pay a fine to China?
Imagine running a website for 20 years, changing absolutely nothing, and one day you’re being targeted because someone else on the other side of the planet changed something at their end.
Tell them to piss off.
They’ll come after your phpbb instance next.
“Block us then. We’re not paying your fines and you’ll never arrest us as we’ll never step foot in your country. Get fucked.” That’s about the response I’d have I think… attached with a photo of tubgirl or something for the classic lawls.
They’ll never control the hacker known as 4chan
I think 4chan is a pretty cool guy. Eh gets fined by the UK and doesn’t afraid of anything.
4chan also faces potential arrest and/or “imprisonment for a term of up to two years,” the lawsuit said.
You don’t want to be locked in a small cell with 4chan for two years.
You don’t want to be locked in a small cell with 4chan for two years.
Not again.
“I’m not stuck here with you. You’re stuck here with me!”
The UK should just block sites that don’t comply. They have no business trying to fine US websites.
Extort, you mean. The law threatens them with abduction and being held in captivity.
What? No it doesn’t, not as long as the people responsible don’t step foot in the UK.
If they do - yes they’ll be arrested for having broken UK law.
I guess thats not a threat? Not sure what else youd classify that as. “If you step on our turf you’re going to be jailed” is just peaceful language haha
You have to obey the law of whatever country you are currently occupying, even if the rule is bad shit crazy, actually especially if the rule is bat shit crazy. There are plenty of people who have done nothing wrong who would be arrested if they step foot in China, but that doesn’t really bother anyone because they don’t step foot in China.
Also it would be interesting to see what they would even be charged with, since offcom don’t really have authority to issue arrest warrants. Ofcom barely have the authority to enforce UK law in the UK. Otherwise the likes of GB news wouldn’t exist.
You have to obey the law of whatever country you are currently occupying.
They’re not “occupying” or even operating here. all the servers have been in Texas since 2008. The British gov are attempting to legislate feature implementations for companies that aren’t operating in britain. it’s ridiculous.
People should fight for their rights and free speech and make pressure on the gouvernement. Blocking is isolationism.
The uk is irrelevant anyways. They will not be missed when they strengthen the Great Firewall rules
people exist here though :(
It’s a process. They need to issue the fine first to give them a chance to pay rather than jumping to blocking it. If they continue to refuse to pay that’s where it’ll go.
It’s an interesting idea that countries could only fine websites that operate in said country. Could get away with a lot by finding a permissive country to do what would otherwise be illegal and worth of fines.
“Selling user’s private information illegally? Buddy, Tuvalo don’t care”
That’s … how it works.
Nope lol, countries definitely try to fine websites not operated in the same country. Sometimes they’re just not succesful
Not just “sometimes”. The thing you’re looking for is “jurisdiction”. A country doesn’t have jurisdiction in another.
Then 4chan shouldn’t do business in the UK by selling 4chan passes there.
4chan should just block UK IPs. They already ban VPN IPs from posting, so obviously they have some infrastructure there to support that.
Not you again… genuinely convinced this user is a bot. He made this same argument a month ago on a now deleted post almost verbatim. I disputed his claims with evidence and they continuously moved the goalpost through the entire argument. either braindead or just software please ignore.
Then explain why you disagree instead of coming at them with ad-hominem.
Not who you replied to, but: there is no legal, ethical, or moral, requirement for a business of one country to comply with the laws of another. If there was, all business would be beholden to the most overbearing government on any one subject. And just to specifically state it before it’s brought up, being tied into the international banking system doesn’t change that; if a state doesn’t want its citizenry doing business with a particular entity, it’s on them to stop it on their side or come to an agreement with the other’s government. Which does happen, especially with the conglomerate hegemony of components of the international banking system, but naturally that means that the only time any entity of a state is forced to comply with the laws of another is when their home-state demands it, which ultimately isn’t the laws of the other.
Their payment processor is operating in the UK though. 4chan isn’t refusing money from UK residents. It is accepting their payments.
I didn’t delete it lol. And its happened just as I said.
Why should that be their problem?
Because they’re doing business in that region. You don’t just get to go to another country and do business as you please there.
Isn’t it people in the UK that go to a US company and do business there?
Not with the internet. 4chan uses a payment processor that allows UK residents to pay with UK currency.
“Allows” - do they do anything specifically for the UK?
They allow UK residents to use a credit or debit card to pay for passes.
Maybe UK payments processors should bar purchases of 4chan passes then.
They will definitely do that soon if 4chan doesn’t respond to the Ofcom’s demands, at least in the UK.
Imagine for a moment that 4chan is a business that sells alcoholic beverages in the US. Now imagine the UK has instituted prohibition and banned the consumption of alcohol.
now, some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to buy, smuggle, and then sell those beverages inside the UK.
Clearly, the government has intended to ban the consumption of alcohol, not the sale of it.
Now the UK government is trying to shackle hefty fines against an American company for having the “audacity” of selling a product to an individual within the confines of the US.
again, the UK banned the consumption of alcohol, not the sale of. 4Chan isn’t forcing UK citizens to drink the alcohol. They are simply selling the product, within their country of origin, to individuals who want to purchase it.
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly “protected”?
now, some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to buy, smuggle, and then sell those beverages inside the UK
Wouldn’t it be more akin to those individuals putting the alcohol into 4chan’s trucks that are taking other stuff to the UK? (and worse with 4chan’s knowledge)
In that case do you think it’s unreasonable that the uk government imposes penalties for 4chan refusing to remove the alcohol that they know is there from the trucks.
And then if 4chan then refuses to pay said penalties start to not allow them to bring any trucks into the uk at all?
the “trucks” in your example are the users computers/phones.
the highways are the Internet, which is owned and maintained by the UK government after their “gate”.
the alcohol is the content.
4chans trucks deliver to the UKs “gate” and the UK user does the rest from there on the UK highways.
if the UK doesn’t want the alcohol in their country, they need to stop their citizens from purchasing it and block it from entering their country at their “gate”.
this is what any reasonable country would do. they (UK) already do it for actual physical products like potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide, and certain artificial food dyes like Yellow 5 and Yellow 6.
Are they going to sue or fine the companies that manufacture those products? no. They’re going to ban the products that use them and then go after the individuals that smuggle them in.
the “trucks” in your example are the users computers/phones.
No it’s the packets being sent from the 4chan server.
Stopping every single packet (or in the real world truck) to check it isn’t feasible, do that and you get 20 mile queues up the m20 (and the digital version of that). Plus any government trying to so it like that would get accused of tax payers money due to the insane amount of resources that would be needed.
Placing the responsibility on the company makes sense, so does issuing penalties for non compliance. The company that has a fine issued against them can of course ignore it if they’re set up outside the country that issues the fine. But they should then expect the country issuing the fine to escalate. If they don’t pay and don’t comply they can expect to have any assets in the uk seized and eventually get blocked from operating entirely. And probably have any executives arrested of they enter the country. Ofcom can’t just jump to getting a court order though because they need to be fair and give 4chan a chance to comply if they want to.
The problem with the online safety act is that it exists at all, and that they expect people to use third party authentication services many of which are operating from countries with poor data protection regulations. That said, as iit does exist the logic of saying that companies are the ones responsible for what people access from their servers does make sense.
Okkkkkay so I’ll play your hypothetical game.
So in your scenario here, some enterprising individuals start off by smuggling alcohol into the UK. By definition according to Merriam-Webster, smuggling is: “to import or export secretly contrary to the law and especially without paying duties imposed by law”.
According to UK laws, this has the following consequences:
Penalties for Drug Smuggling
The legal consequences of drug smuggling in the United Kingdom are robust and intricate. These penalties are designed to deter and punish those involved in the illicit trade of controlled substances, and they vary significantly depending on the nature and scale of the offense.Prison Sentences
Convictions for drug smuggling can result in substantial prison sentences. The duration of imprisonment varies based on factors such as the type and quantity of drugs involved, the defendant’s role in the operation, and any previous criminal history. For Class A drugs like heroin or cocaine, sentences can range from several years to life imprisonment. The courts take a particularly stern stance on those involved in large-scale drug trafficking operations, often imposing the harshest sentences.Fines
In addition to imprisonment, courts may impose hefty fines on individuals convicted of drug smuggling. These financial penalties are meant to act as both a punishment and a deterrent. Fines can be substantial and are typically proportional to the severity of the offense and the defendant’s financial means.Confiscation Orders
The UK’s legal system has mechanisms to prevent criminals from profiting from their drug smuggling activities. Courts can issue confiscation orders requiring the defendant to surrender any assets or wealth acquired through drug smuggling. This means that criminals face prison time and fines and risk losing ill-gotten gains.Forfeiture of Assets
In cases where assets such as vehicles, boats, properties, or other possessions were used to commission drug smuggling offenses, law enforcement agencies can seize these assets through forfeiture proceedings. This serves as a punishment for the offender and a means to disrupt criminal enterprises.Travel Restrictions
Convictions related to drug smuggling can result in travel restrictions imposed on the individual. These restrictions may include bans on leaving the country to prevent the convicted person from continuing their criminal activities abroad. Such measures are implemented to ensure that those involved in drug smuggling cannot easily evade justice by fleeing the country.Lets move to the selling of the illegally imported alcohol:
You can be stopped, fined or arrested by police if you’re under 18 and drinking alcohol in public.
If you’re under 18, it’s against the law:
- for someone to sell you alcohol
- to buy or try to buy alcohol
- for an adult to buy or try to buy alcohol for you
- to drink alcohol in licensed premises (such as a pub or restaurant)
However, if you’re 16 or 17 and accompanied by an adult, you can drink (but not buy) beer, wine or cider with a meal.
If you’re 16 or under, you may be able to go to a pub (or premises primarily used to sell alcohol) if you’re accompanied by an adult. However, this isn’t always the case. It can also depend on the specific conditions for that premises.
It’s illegal to give alcohol to children under 5.
For the sake of your argument, we’ll remove the law that says its illegal to sell alcohol to children, I guess? Regardless, it might be some enterprising individuals that are selling it, but they are selling the alcohol in the UK. In UK currency, To UK residents. In the UK. We are getting into possibly exchanging UK currency for US currency, which is a whole new can of worms, but we can save that for later.
Now to your question:
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly “protected”?
Easy answer is yes. They should be fined for smuggling alcohol into the UK, which is what the current law calls for.
Now hypothetical for you.
Imagine for a moment that the UK has banned looking at alcohol if you are under 18. Doesn’t matter if you look at alcohol if you are over the age of 18, but you just can’t legally look at alcohol if you are under 18.
Now someone comes along named 4chan and builds a giant building in the UK that has a ton of alcohol inside of it. There isn’t anything outside of the building. Its only inside where the alcohol is. They don’t have protections in place that prevent anyone under 18 from going inside the building. Anyone can come in and look. You can be 5 years old, or 100 years old. As a matter of fact, tons of people from all over the UK come and visit this building daily, even children.
Now the UK government comes along and says, “Hey 4chan, you need to verify that anyone that goes into your building is at least 18 years old, because if someone under 18 looks at the alcohol in there, thats against the law.”
4chan ignores the UK and continues letting anyone inside, not verifying anyone’s age. Not only that, but they’re actually selling alcohol to children in there, and letting children make their own alcohol as well.
Should the UK be allowed to fine/arrest 4chan until they meet the demands?
gonna be honest, I didn’t read anything past this part.
So in your scenario here, 4chan starts off by smuggling alcohol into the UK.
I didn’t read any of it because you clearly didn’t read what I said.
here’s the part you conveniently forgot and it literally changes the entire argument.
some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to buy, smuggle, and then sell those beverages inside the UK.
next time you want to argue your point don’t employ the use of bad faith tactics and try to argue your point without manufacturing flaws.
LOL okay but you said:
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly “protected”?
I went ahead and edited it for you so it says enterprising individuals… which you end up asking about 4chan anyways
still not reading it. you attempted to argue under false pretenses and I’m not wasting my time on something you probably used AI to generate.
I didn’t use AI at all.
Learn to read.
Read what, exactly?
long, horizontal scroll boxes of text that isn’t code
proper blockquotes elsewhereYou clearly know how to blockquote: use it correctly.
Used it correctly per Mozilla’s blockquote documentation, as I was quoting another source.
Nope: the horizontal scroll boxes (marked up as code blocks) don’t contain code & no one should have to horizontally scroll long prose. Those code blocks should be blockquotes.
Mozilla’s blockquote documentation
The markdown documentation is built right into the lemmy editor (as the help icon).
Edited it. Hows that?
Looks like it doesn’t get rendered correctly on my end
Noooo the britbong threads
4chan makes that much money?!?
They do, at least a little. You can pay for a subscription to get rid of the captcha before posting.
At least a little?
According to this article they pull in 230 million a year. For a shitty forum that looks like it’s run on 1995 tech
That’s all of moolah for/from internet trolls. Though I imagine that those servers aren’t cheap either.
I wonder if Ofcom’s true goal is banning 4chan from the UK and if this is a just required part of the legal process for a ban…
