Hacker News Reader

Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

More than that if his clients ever do end up in the UK for whatever reason his letters sent on their behalf to the UK government are going to be prime evidence that the violation of the law was wilful.

Meanwhile if his clients remain beyond the UKs reach sending these letters achieves nothing of value.

There's no world where this response convinces Ofcom to stop doing their job at enforcing (to the best of their ability) the UKs laws.

He is just hurting his own clients by sending letters back to them.

View on HN

I think it’s great that someone is loudly and publicly saying no to them.

You don’t need to loudly and publicly say no to Roskomnadzor’s extrajudicial notices, by recognising them you’re giving them more legitimacy than they deserve by acknowledging at all rather than treating the notice as the spam it is.

Just because the UK is modelling themselves in the same image doesn’t mean that the tactic for dealing with extrajudicial censorship attempts is different.

The Granite act is a direct result of this loud response. Being loud means that U.S. politicians notice, a U.S. under secratary notices, which means a stronger and more legally binding response is possible. Legislature and foreign diplomacy is involved not just some idealistic whining about jurisdiction.

https://x.com/prestonjbyrne/status/1996398535189860688

Exactly, this is reaching the level where the US government needs to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on the UK to cease. Raising the profile of the issue will help make that happen.

I mean I don't particularly agree but I can understand the sentiment.

That's not what I'm saying just harms his clients though. There's obvious (almost entirely domestic, probably counter productive as to UK politics) lobbying value in that. It's the part where he sends confessions back to the UK regulators privately that just harms his clients.

The high-profile, public, Arkell vs. Pressdram type response increases public awareness.

Without that, he’s just a guy with a blog, and can’t effect any real change. Whether it harms or benefits his clients or not is likely a question of politics. If these responses drum up enough attention that his GRANITE act gets passed, that’s arguably a better outcome for each client jointly and severally than just ignoring the letters.

I, without proof, think that ofcom will file these letters as "second best outcome" (from their perspective).

Of course it would have been "best" (again for ofcom) if 4chan had just complied but I don't think they ever expected that.

With these meaningless letters (for the reasons you state) the agency can later go to law makers and ask for more domestic enforcement power because clearly "it's not working".

If by chance one of the 4chan people stumbles about that personally they'd consider that as a bonus.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com