Ofcom is currently threatening a Canadian forum that exists to help people with depression. Ofcom claims that geoblocking blocking the UK is "insufficient":

> I've also gone back to Ofcom explicitly telling them the UK was now geoblocked (twice now) and I received a response that this was insufficient.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_ru...

Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.

People here seem to be thinking this a UK/Europe-specific phenomenon, but there's plenty of examples of the US "seizing" sites that were never hosted in the USA either, and even put pressure on countries to extradite people involved even if they never broke any laws in the country they're living in.

One I remember was a site hosting streams of the 2022 football world cup. Or a number of Iranian-affiliated news sites just last year. Or offshore gambling websites in 2021.

People going "Those Crazy Brits! Thank God That'll Never Happen Here!" seem pretty ill-informed.

The response from Ofcom doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

If you are to sell a toy in the UK you must be a British company. (and must pay VAT and comply with British safety standards).

If a consumer buys from overseas and imports a product then they do not have British consumer protections. Which is why so much aliexpress electrical stuff is dangerous (expecially USB chargers) yet it continues to be legally imported.

Just, no british retailer would be allowed to carry it without getting a fine.

>However, a lawyer representing the company - which has previously said it won't pay such fines - has responded to the demand with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster.

>The latest image is not the first picture of a hamster lawyers for 4chan have sent in reply to Ofcom

amazing. same energy as the pirate bay telling dreamworks to sodomize themselves. i cant help but laugh at the absurdness of it.

If it wasn't for 4Chan, we might never have solved the Haruhi problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation#Lower_bounds,...

I used to go on a curated version of 4Chan via Telegram. Yes there is a lot of racism (although it flies in every direction, between every ethnicity you could imagine) but there is also (due to the anonymous nature) some genuinely interesting discussions. I remember one thread about aircraft carriers being of no use being debated by US and UK submarine officers.

There are also some genuinely funny bits. There was a guy in Greece who had found out that as long as he never graduated, he could live a basic life for free at university. His nickname was Dormogenes.

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]

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

The letter sent by the lawyer in response: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HDwtXYaWAAA-u0l?format=jpg&name=...

> "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.

So the UK plans to fine Parisian bars that serve alcohol to British under-18s in France on holiday?

UK fining an American company for this is absurd. 4Chan isn't breaking any laws. You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business. UK citizens should fight for the right to free speech though.

It would be marvelous if they used a drawing of a spider.

https://27bslash6.com/overdue.html

Let kids go to 4chan. I frequented it and turned out fine.

Getting flashbacks to the letters the Pirate Bay used to send lawyers

https://www.scribd.com/document/117922444/the-pirate-bay-res...

I'm pretty sure in one they responded saying their lawyer was alseep in a ditch and would reply when he woke up lol

Meanwhile Google.com shows all manner of depravity if you click “safe search: off”.

I realize there’s a carve out in the legislation for search engines but if the goal is to stop little Timmy finding pictures of an X being Yd up the Z then it is a resolute failure.

The only thing that works with children is transparency and accountability, be that the school firewall or a ban on screen use in secret.

”screens where I can see ‘em!”

Germany tried earlier to fine American companies for online posts using a law called "NetzDG".

Gab refused to pay the fine, and it was over.

> The enforcement notice itself highlights the structural tension. Despite acknowledging Gab’s US address, the German government asserts authority to pursue collection, including formal enforcement proceedings, without identifying any German subsidiary or office.

> The payment instructions route funds directly to the German federal treasury, showing that the action is punitive rather than remedial.

> Germany’s approach also reveals the paper trail behind modern censorship enforcement. The fine stems not from a specific post or statement, but from alleged failure to comply with aspects of NetzDG. That procedural hook enables broader regulatory reach, transforming administrative requirements into a mechanism for speech governance.

https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-refuses-to-pay-germanys-fine-c...

4chan is already on most of the adult content filters used in the UK at ISP level (along with other such egregious offenders against childhood purity as archive.org) meaning that an explicit request to remove the filter is often required to access it... That it has taken this long to implement a universal block at the ISP level shows that the motive is something other than 'protecting the innocent'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...

It feels more and more embarrassing as time goes by to tell people I am British.

This is all just theatre to justify a ban right?

i love the cognitive dissonance of some USians in this comment section who believe in both of these statements:

"4chan is a US company operating in the US, sure it serves content to global users but the jurisdiction is the US, we have free speech, ..."

"Sure, Company X is operating in Europe, but it also serves US users so it has to respect our laws and it's warranted for the US to apply pressure and fines."

at least decide for one side of the argument instead of just going the blind patriot way.

UK is recently going more and more towards censorship and thought control, but this is only my private but honest opinion

Is 4Chan still accessible from the US states with age verification laws?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

> Last month Pornhub restricted access to its website in the UK, blaming the introduction of stricter age checks, and said its traffic had fallen by 77%.

assumedly the rate of consumption hasn't dramatically changed, so the OSA's immediate result has been either the decentralisation of porn providers (towards those small enough to dodge the law for now and be less exacting) or the mass adoption of proxies; I assume the former is the path of least resistance

this is notably the opposite of the feared outcome (which I suspect may be closer to the long-term effect) that the bar to meet the requirements would be so high (possibly involving hiring a lawyer) that smaller social/porn sites get regulated out of existence (see ie. https://lobste.rs/s/ukosa1/uk_users_lobsters_needs_your_help...)

Whether the data is arriving on a wire, a physical hard drive, DVD, or book, doesn’t really change anything.

It is the role of customs to inspect the physical goods (i.e. physical light) that crosses the border. These are fiber connections the UK themselves chose to install. No one forced these data imports on them.

North korea and China for example have extensive infrastructure to inspect and reject imported data.

4chan doesn't need age checks, everyone knows there are only five year olds on it. :-p

Amateurs. Russia has fined Google more than the GDP of the entire planet. Odds of collecting are about the same.

Never thought I'd find myself cheering for 4Chan, but here we are.

"safety breaches" is a deeply Orwellian term.

It does seem like if the UK wants to do content filtration (blocking noncompliant websites) they will need to own up to it and set up a China-style firewall, rather than hoping they can badger the service providers into doing it for them.

good. There are plenty of laws, especially around technology, that deserve a good public mocking.

At least in the US, you have 70+ year old lawmakers proposing (not even writing) laws they do not understand, passed to them by opaque groups with a obscured, albeit clear, interest.

See the latest age verification bills passed by Meta through a convoluted web of influence. Bring back the technocrats.

UK is being destroyed by the woke mind virus. They want random laws for online “safety” but are unable to deport even a small percentage of fake asylum seekers who have made the streets physically unsafe and are already convicted of sexual crimes. There are literally thousands of cases which seem like parody where convicted criminals either delay or escape deportations. Can’t investigate grooming gangs, can’t defend their boundaries, but surely can arrest people for Facebook posts and thought crimes.

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In the midst of the 4chan v. Ofcom civil suit? Interesting.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71209929/4chan-communit...

Getting more convinced day by day that bureaucrats of all countries are all pretty dense.

The age check laws is just funneling money directly to VPN companies.

There's no way anyone sensible would give over their identity to dodgy websites. It's easier to just pretend to be in a different country.

how come noone has bothered to tell ofcom that 4chan has been clearly a honeypot for nearly a quarter of a century

520k sounds like a lot until you realize it's basically unenforceable if the company just ignores it

If they blocked RT, they can block 4chan if they so choose. Why would they expect a company that does not target the British audience to have any concern for British laws?

People used to tell kids to not go to a shady part of town while they spent their afternoons outside unsupervised. Can parents not tell kids to not go to certain websites? We still went to the shady part of town and the kids will still go to 4chan but at least we don't need to give away freedoms. Such erosion of freedom for the common person because parents can't have an awkward conversation is irritating.

Let my gremlin brain make number go up. At the very least just to highlight how silly the precedent set is.

As a Brit this is so embarrassing I wish they would stop.

Doesn't really seem like there's an anti-authoritarian party available to us either.

The best way to protect citizens of the UK from material online might be to sever their international network connections.

4chan is the one that should be mocked. One of the biggest assortment of losers on earth.

Hiroshimoot must be sweating bullets

this is a poignant example of rent seeking

You have been convicted in absentia of double plus ungood crime think

Please report to the closest police station

Miniluv

"Okay grandma, let's get you to bed" moment.

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its amazing how little governments understand sovreignty and borders these days

they have literally no power over things outside their own land borders and people are right to tell them to piss off.

10/10 law in bongland

We simply can't have an Internet where you'll need to comply with 100% of legalisation of all 193+ countries at all times; it's untenable.

For ofcom, 4chan is just a sticking their toes in the pool. If they fall, ofcom will have complete freedom to censor the entire Internet as they wish. It's madness.

Can't UK simply blacklist 4chan?

I don't really understand what is going on with Ofcom.

This nonsense, and yet they allow GBNews to keep spewing propaganda and violate almost all broadcast standards that Ofcom is supposed to enforce.

Don't use 4chan, but great job standing up to the continued attack on Free Speech. I hope more people contact their representatives/senators and get them to stop the non-stop attack happening here in the states too.

We really need a Statesternet. People will be able to verify their identity to buy a special device which will encrypt/decrypt their traffic, and people in the UK will not be able to purchase one. The device will use GPS to confirm that it's only operating in the US.

Good. These ridiculous extraterritorial laws should be broken and mocked at every opportunity.

Related:

Ofcom has today fined 4chan £450k for not having age checks in place

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442838

This part is somewhat surprising to me:

> Data shows that nearly 80% of the top 100 pornography sites in the UK now have age checks in place. This means that on average, every day, over 7 million visitors from the UK are accessing pornography services that have deployed age assurance.

I would have expected that most people would switch to other pornography sites that don't have age checks rather than doing an age check. But apparently that isn't the case. (Or their data is misleading. People in the UK who are using VPNs presumably can't be easily identified as British.)

Low-functioning politicians and bureaucrats keep their jobs by doing things that sound good.

Do they understand the futility? I suspect most do. But trying to be high-functioning, in a low-functioning system, is also a good way to lose your job.

"As they should"

I mean the 4chan lawyer makes a good point.

If you think about it, it's the Internet Service Providers in the UK who choose choose to allow this US content into the UK. Why go after 4chan?

The ISPs could just shut down the BGP protocol and set up their own ICANN alternative with their own DNS system which is completely separate from the US one. So it's the UK government's choice to allow this content to the UK, not 4chan's. Or they could just put up a China-style great firewall.

The unpaywalled version on AOL https://www.aol.com/articles/us-messageboard-4chan-mocks-520...

Anyone want to sell/explain 4chan for me?

I haven't thought about it at all since the last time I looked there maybe about 2 years ago.

Still looks shit.

What's the enduring appeal?

It's insane how many people here on HN defend these bs fines. Prepare to follow Russia's laws if you normalize this.

£450k? - Quick, we must show we've done something.

> or requiring Internet Service Providers to block a site in the UK.

Ah, that's what they want.

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You mean the message board that collab-ed with Epstein? Delete them from the internet.

There's always people that say it's the parents responsibility to monitor their kids. But as a parent, you either give your kids full access to the internet or nothing. The fault lies with the OS companies Google, Microsoft, Apple. They do a terrible job with parental controls. They make it very hard to setup, they're confusing and hard to use plus they barely work. I think they just do it as a checkbox for marketing or regulatory purposes. That's where I'd like to see regulation.

4chan fighting for us all! Bravo.

When will the British rise up against Starmer's corrupt, Epsteinian regime

United States remains the only place with real freedom of speech.

Other places have 'hate speech' laws that severely erode it. Genuine criticism or discussion of certain topics is forbidden.

4chan is still a thing? I thought it died long ago. Perhaps I grew up.

Europeans are following the wrong path on regulating the internet. Instead of calling it internet safety and annoy people, they should just make those services and the people running them liable for the damages.

The same goes for the freedom of speech. Europeans should make it legal guarantee instead of trying to build walls around speech. So when X or 4Chan etc deletes a post, it may lead to freedom of speech fines if deletion wasn't justified. Tha same for the algorithm, if a post that doesn't break the rules is discriminated by the algorithm, a hefty fine should apply.

Suddenly we will have companies that keep their business clean and no claim for moral high ground.