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Comment by CaptainOfCoit | Hacker News Reader

Really grateful that a project like this took on the task to ask for legal advice, and extra kudos for actually releasing a statement based on their understanding of the legal advice. Hopefully will be useful to lots of similar organizations.

Libera.chat seems to say that even if Ofcom thinks they have a case, they don't as Libera's user base doesn't have enough UK users:

> The exact fraction of the UK’s online population that must use a given service to be considered “significant” is unknown, but based on our counsel’s observations of Ofcom’s previous regulatory actions, it appears to be much higher than our internal estimates of how large our UK user base is.

Related submission with 788 comments from ~1 week ago: "4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45614148

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significant can mean anything ofcom want it to

their entire post is sophistry and wishful thinking, neither of which will work if ofcom decide to go after them

the intention of the OSA is to attempt to regulate user-to-user communications services, of which IRC is one

they're probably right that they're near bottom of the list though

(at least until this blog post ends up on their desk monday morning)

If they were persued, I assume they'd shut down. At the same time, a new IT service called "freechat" or "librenode" would start up.

> significant can mean anything ofcom want it to

You're right in the sense that they can pursue whomever they want based on whatever interpretation of "significant" they may hold. But it is not Ofcom that ultimately decides on the meaning of the term, that is for a court to decide and that court would likely rely on the same authorities and principles that Libera's lawyers did in their advice.

> But it is not Ofcom that ultimately decides on the meaning of the term, that is for a court to decide and that court would likely rely on the same authorities and principles that Libera's lawyers did in their advice.

assuming of course libera don't fold the moment they receive a nastygram ("enforcement notice")

like they did when andrew lee commandeered freenode

They weren't in a strong legal position then: a few mistakes over the course of decades substantially weakened their ability to fight back against Andrew Lee (without significant personal expense). Libera's legal structure is much stronger, and (importantly) the Ofcom has nothing to gain from going after them. (Libera aren't, after all, part of the problem.)

I think you are putting too much faith in the courts. They are independent, but they have shown time and again that they will interpret the law how they like. They don't live in a vacuum and they certainly aren't free from, or blind to political considerations that influence their decisions, like the rest of us. Ofcom are very clearly the sort of people who want to apply the most open ended and widespread use of the powers they can in a misguided effort to save the public from themselves and i have very little confidence that our judges are not cut from the same cloth. I won't go so far as to say they would collude with ofcom, but i do think they are more likely to side with them over the defendants, however weak the case may be.

The problem is the law is worded in the vaguest way possible and ofcom in exceptionally bad faith have refused to give any clear guidance on what they will and won't prosecute. Our politicians in their arrogance have passed this law, so expect no help from them.

Not sure why your comment has been received negatively when it seems to be obviously true. Yes, "significant" is ambiguous and I wouldn't be surprised if the intention is to give themselves discretion to go after whoever they choose. The OSA is insidious.

In these games involving companies with no physical presence in the UK, OfCom has only two realistic enforcement strategies:

1. Arrest the founders or officers at the UK border if they attempt to enter.

2. Direct UK ISPs to block access to their services.

Let's see if they are so PR-insensitive that they will want to actually do that.

3. Ask for extradition.

"No US citizen was extradited for an alleged crime while the person was based in the US"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_trea...

According to tfa they're based in sweden

libera.chat servers are hosted by volunteers. Most of the libera.chat infra are the the same servers which were switched from freenode in 2021. Existence of the non-profit in Sweden changes nothing, that entity can be closed without any adverse effect for the IRC.

Many flights connect through London.

Right, but that's option 1 (arrest them if they enter the uk).

Seems like ofcom picked thier targets to create precedent fur using ISP blocks against non compliant companies.

Case law is important in the UK because laws are vaguely written and thier specifics are established in court.

By going after entities that can't comply and don't have a big legal budget like 4chan, they can go through the motions and establish that ISP level blocks against non complying companies are okay.

They can then hit progressively more difficult targets until they get to X and tiktok.

The end goal is obviously directing UK ISPs to block services. This whole game is just performative attempts at enforcement to create a paper trail when they propose the blocks.

Good insights.

1. Do you think that getting the legal advice was a good defensive measure?

(Something to point to, to establish that they were being responsible, if ever challenged.)

2. And do you think that publicizing it was a good idea?

(Probably they are drawing fire on Monday morning, like you said. But maybe it's a plausibly good tactical move because, just speculating here, someone now takes the time to pay attention to who they are, rather than them later land on some poorly-informed list of non-compliants that gets rubber-stamped for action.)

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