4chan's lawyer's response:
"In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0]
"In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0]
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"Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," she said.
"The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short."
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Quite frankly she seems completely out of touch with her own argument. The UK can certainly legislate away tobacco sales, for instance; they can't go after tobacco producers in a foreign state. 4Chan operates in the US and is a US company. They have no jurisdiction over it, even if their citizenry can access it; it's on them to block that access if they don't like it. Unless they're also implying that the US government should be allowed to go after UK companies that don't follow it's free speech regulations because American citizens can access them.
Precedent in the US is that courts do in fact have jurisdiction over a foreign website's owner if the owner "purposefully availed itself of the U.S. forum or purposefully directed its activities toward it", a test which is less demanding than it sounds. [1]
And US has taken advantage of this to go after foreign websites such as Megaupload, BTC-e, Liberty Reserve, etc.
Therefore, if there were a US law requiring companies to follow free speech rules, it could potentially be enforced against foreign website owners. But no such law currently exists. The First Amendment itself only applies to the US government (and to companies working on behalf of the US government). There is also the SPEECH Act, which, among other provisions, creates a cause of action where if someone sues a US person in a foreign court over their speech, they can sue back in US court. But only for declaratory judgement, not damages or an injunction. The goal is mainly just to prevent US courts from enforcing judgements from the foreign court in such cases.
[1] https://tlblog.org/how-to-find-personal-jurisdiction-over-fo...
Not even China and North Korea whine about or send fake “fines” to offshore entities. They just block their sites and move on with life.
On the contrary, both of those are very active in going after people who operate websites they don't like from overseas, and/or their family members (who are often easier to get at). They just don't publish legal notices around it.
The fact that's technically hard to do (at least without going full-on CCP) doesn't change the situation. Attempting to fine a foreign entity for doing something that breaks no laws in the foreign entity's jurisdiction is just risible.
It is amazing that these guys don't see the irony of monkeying totaliterian states policies, in term of surveillance and censorship.
Tribalism is awful for societies. There’s a reason Russia put so much effort into amplifying it in the west.
And yet, me sitting in Germany suddenly saw a nice banned notice when trying to access the site claiming this is because of "a high court verdict yadayadaya".
Why on earth do I now find ways around a UK court order to unblock a website when I am nowhere near their country? They should at least try and keep things within their jurisdiction.
But unlike physical imports, there's a sense that blocking these imports is an affront to base philosophical freedom in a way that prohibiting physical imports isn't.
It would serve UK legislators well to explore that tingling sense some more before they consider any further efforts in this direction, but that's just my two pence.
Keyword: "The UK".
> cornerstones of our laws
Keyword: "our laws".
> and we'll take robust enforcement action
Enforcement action can only take place within the jurisdiction (with a notable exception of the US which doesn't give a single fuck about someone else's law).
They have had decades to do this. They have not.
Risk aversion and Regulation are the heart of the issue.
Same things that have flattened the American housing market for the last 30 years.
Today building social network or a cloud provider is a trivial exercise. If the financial incentive is there (aka ban of US services), they will pop out like mushrooms.
And the UK... each time it delivers there.
But they have no legal basis to fine 4chan.
The Online Safety Act 2023[1][2][3] (OSA) (c. 50) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate online content. It was passed on 26 October 2023 and gives the relevant secretary of state the power to designate, suppress, and record a wide range of online content that they deem illegal or harmful to children.[4][5]
They are bound by UK law exactly as much as they are bound by Venutian or Mars law.
And honestly this is more than they really should even have to do. I think it does go above their obligation. They're doing Offcom a favor here, they don't even have to figure out how to block it themselves.
this isn't true
So it's clearly operating globally.
Country flags are a major feature of the board.
If I offer a service in US I still have to respect US law, it doesn't matter that I'm based in Luxembourg or New Zealand.
The same applies in reverse.
E.g. many US news outlets never cared to implement gdpr and geoblocked European users from accessing their websites.
If my services are available in US, I need to comply with US laws as well.
Mother Britain will be happy to make an example out of them if Uncle Sam doesn't intervene.
CCP "Great Firewall" style.
The reality is this will seriously chill speech broadly across the country regardless of either of those outcomes, and the technical costs of enforcement will be steep.
The UK government has been openly doing this for a couple of years by now.
I mean there are parties that say they like free speech, but it never extends to the sort of speech they disagree with, or by people of the wrong colour/religion/gender etc.
VPN take up in the UK is around 20-25%
I really hope for all the people in the UK that your country doesn't go down this route.