4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over Its Age Verification Law (404media.co) 103
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: 4chan and Kiwi Farms sued the United Kingdom's Office of Communications (Ofcom) over its age verification law in U.S. federal court Wednesday, fulfilling a promise it announced on August 23. In the lawsuit, 4chan and Kiwi Farms claim that threats and fines they have received from Ofcom "constitute foreign judgments that would restrict speech under U.S. law." Both entities say in the lawsuit that they are wholly based in the U.S. and that they do not have any operations in the United Kingdom and are therefore not subject to local laws. Ofcom's attempts to fine and block 4chan and Kiwi Farms, and the lawsuit against Ofcom, highlight the messiness involved with trying to restrict access to specific websites or to force companies to comply with age verification laws.
The lawsuit calls Ofcom an "industry-funded global censorship bureau." "Ofcom's ambitions are to regulate Internet communications for the entire world, regardless of where these websites are based or whether they have any connection to the UK," the lawsuit states. "On its website, Ofcom states that 'over 100,000 online services are likely to be in scope of the Online Safety Act -- from the largest social media platforms to the smallest community forum.'" [...] Ofcom began investigating 4chan over alleged violations of the Online Safety Act in June. On August 13, it announced a provisional decision and stated that 4chan had "contravened its duties" and then began to charge the site a penalty of [roughly $26,000] a day. Kiwi Farms has also been threatened with fines, the lawsuit states. "American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail. In the face of these foreign demands, our clients have bravely chosen to assert their constitutional rights," said Preston Byrne, one of the lawyers representing 4chan and Kiwi Farms.
"We are aware of the lawsuit," an Ofcom spokesperson told 404 Media. "Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based. The Act does not, however, require them to protect users based anywhere else in the world."
The lawsuit calls Ofcom an "industry-funded global censorship bureau." "Ofcom's ambitions are to regulate Internet communications for the entire world, regardless of where these websites are based or whether they have any connection to the UK," the lawsuit states. "On its website, Ofcom states that 'over 100,000 online services are likely to be in scope of the Online Safety Act -- from the largest social media platforms to the smallest community forum.'" [...] Ofcom began investigating 4chan over alleged violations of the Online Safety Act in June. On August 13, it announced a provisional decision and stated that 4chan had "contravened its duties" and then began to charge the site a penalty of [roughly $26,000] a day. Kiwi Farms has also been threatened with fines, the lawsuit states. "American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail. In the face of these foreign demands, our clients have bravely chosen to assert their constitutional rights," said Preston Byrne, one of the lawyers representing 4chan and Kiwi Farms.
"We are aware of the lawsuit," an Ofcom spokesperson told 404 Media. "Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based. The Act does not, however, require them to protect users based anywhere else in the world."
Sued in a US court (Score:3)
Surely if the same principle applies - why would Ofcom care what a US court decides?
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Because ignoring US courts means that fines won't be effective. It would make it far more difficult for the UK to enforce an fines, leans, or freezes through US banks if there is a favorable US judgement. The process for enforcing fines is so incredibly complicated that you basically need a dedicated legal team to deal with fighting them, it's usually easier to pay the fine once then comply.
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Second, These disgusting, shitheel wastes of skin seem to be doing it correctly - see 28 USC 4104 [cornell.edu], I think.
I hope they all die of an embarrassing skin condition right after winning.
Re: Sued in a US court (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope they keep going. Do I agree with them politically? Nope. But, what's interesting is they're able to continue on despite intense pressure on the part of big infrastructure providers and financial institutions. In other words, they've been able to keep going despite the centralized internet providers and basically everything else actively working against them, and the media repeatedly claiming that they've been taken offline for good only for them to be back up within hours if not minutes. They even came up with their own anti-ddos mechanism that appears to hold up against large scale attacks using relatively little infrastructure, basically by use of a decentralized server cluster along with a crypto interstitial going under the moniker "ddos retarding services".
It's nuts how not too long ago, progressives complained about centralized internet services, lack of net neutrality, the copyright cartel and the centralized financial system, but all of a sudden they love all of that once they realized they can use all of that to shit on the civil rights of people they don't like, because pesky things like the bill of rights gets in the way of them having the government do it.
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It's nuts how not too long ago, progressives complained about centralized internet services, lack of net neutrality, the copyright cartel and the centralized financial system, but all of a sudden they love all of that once they realized they can use all of that to shit on the civil rights of people they don't like, because pesky things like the bill of rights gets in the way of them having the government do it.
If you do something horribly unpopular, there's no God-given right that says you're entitled to earn a profit from it. Heck, even if it's something that seems offensive in only the most childish interpretation of the term, like removing an old man and a wooden barrel from your corporate logo, that's still fair game for that sweet, sweet, free market money to stop flowing your way.
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If you do something horribly unpopular, there's no God-given right that says you're entitled to earn a profit from it.
I don't believe there is either, and I don't believe they do either. Or maybe they do but don't talk about it; I don't know, but it's not relevant.
Heck, even if it's something that seems offensive in only the most childish interpretation of the term, like removing an old man and a wooden barrel from your corporate logo, that's still fair game for that sweet, sweet, free market money to stop flowing your way.
Indeed. However -- and this is the big kicker -- what if people want to buy from them anyway, but the banks say "not happening"? I don't believe that is a problem if just one or even a thousand banks want to do that. But, what if there's effectively a cartel of them that dominate the most commonly used means of payment, and if one of them says no, then they all a
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Indeed. However -- and this is the big kicker -- what if people want to buy from them anyway, but the banks say "not happening"?
Some legitimate businesses (marijuana dispensaries come to mind) do have to operate under those conditions - they typically accept cash and sometimes cryptocurrency. Illegitimate businesses also somehow manage to find ways to earn profit, so I don't buy for one second that it's impossible to work around. It's just not easy to run a hate speech site, and honestly there's nothing in the 1A that says the government has to proactively take steps regulating various industries to make it easier - just that the
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Some legitimate businesses (marijuana dispensaries come to mind) do have to operate under those conditions
And do you think that's right? Particularly, given by only dealing in cash, they're far riper for being burglarized or otherwise targeted by organized crime. I'm not sure if you're aware, but the origin of banking began with goldsmiths, who generally had the means of storing and securing precious metals, creating vaults for this purpose, having armed guards on retainer, which most people did not have. When a goldsmith stored your valuables, they'd give you a voucher that was redeemable for whatever you gave
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There are workarounds. Cryptocurrency is one such method, however everything else generally isn't legal. What's hilarious is progressives generally want that to be illegal too, and they say they're not authoritarians.
I'd like to see the proof-of-work mining banned, but only because it's a massive waste of electricity and there are other established methods for securing blockchains that are significantly more efficient.
Now, this is a tricky one: Define hate speech.
Other countries have defined it legally, the difference is that here in the USA it's still protected under the 1A. That doesn't prohibit businesses from saying they want nothing to do with companies whose purpose is to disseminate hate speech, however they choose to define it for themselves.
This is true, however, in my mind this actually is less a first amendment issue and more of an antitrust issue.
Guardrails cer
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I'd like to see the proof-of-work mining banned, but only because it's a massive waste of electricity and there are other established methods for securing blockchains that are significantly more efficient.
What's it to you if it's their dime?
Other countries have defined it legally
And they're not even consistent with one another. In Germany, saying the holocaust didn't happen is considered hate speech, but it's not in the UK. Meanwhile in the UK, any action that somebody perceives as "hateful" counts as hate speech, an example the police have in one of their manuals is something like "somebody saw a rock get thrown at a car at a pride parade" counts as hateful merely because somebody received it as such, even if they weren't the target or if they a
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"Horribly unpopular" is a relative term. I myself have never felt compelled to visit either of these sites, but I know they've been around for a long time so there are clearly a lot of people who do enjoy their content so they're obviously popular enough.
Heck, even if it's something that seems offensive in only the most childish interpretation of the term, like removing an old man and a wooden barrel from your corporate logo, that's still fair game for that sweet, sweet, free market money to stop flowing your way.
What's happening here is nothing to do with free market. It's a foreign government, in this case UK government, trying to levy fines on sites not based in UK because they don't comply with UK censorship laws. The thing is, if one foreign government can do t
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A brief look at your posting history reveals that you eat a lot of butt.
Re: Sued in a US court (Score:5, Informative)
Progressives?
If your effort to fall over yourself trying to be as much as a tit as possible you appear to have missed that the online safety act was padded by a conservative government.
This act is and always was right wing bullshit.
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If your effort to fall over yourself trying to be as much as a tit as possible you appear to have missed that the online safety act was padded by a conservative government.
There are a lot of things you're getting wrong here.
First, where do you think I even called out this particular UK law? What I specifically referred to was the concerted effort by large private sector organizations, which progressives seem opposed to right until it targets people they don't like, then all of a sudden they want nothing more than to keep it.
Second, let's assume that I was -- what on earth makes you believe your conservative party is any different from American progressives? I'm sure they'd bo
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Oh right I see you're using that weird American right wing specific lingo where the definitions of everything political mean completely different things from anyone else.
You can't even decide if progressives are for or against it. Claiming that progressives were opposed, but that the party that put it through is progressive.
How the fuck you consider the conservative party as progressives is anyone guess, unless you're doing that things where "progressive" is bad mmmkay, they did something bad mmmkay so they
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Oh bruvah...
Right...I see you don't speak English so less' try Cockney then.
Oh right I see you're using that weird American right wing specific lingo where the definitions of everything political mean completely different things from anyone else.
No laddie, progresseeves do. See, they say fings loike "defun' the bobbies!" so I says "so how do laws work wif no bobbies?" so they says "defun' the bobbies don't mean defun' the bobbies!" An' they say fings loike "gives us socialism!" so I says "right, so you want the gov'nah ownin' all yer stuff then" so they says "not that koind of socialism" but thass the thing, laddie, there's only one koind.
You can't even decide if progressives are for or against it.
No, laddie. Iss loike I was tellin'
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I see you don't speak English
I speak English, not Right wing American politicalese.
But I understand you: you don't know what a progressive is but you know they are bad, and you hate them.
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I speak English
Me army said nuffin abou' Britain at all, dinni? An' yet ye still fink I'm talkin' abou' yer bloody laws wif that set of bollocks in yer mouf. Porkies, lassie, no' buyin' i'.
Re: Sued in a US court (Score:5, Informative)
> It's nuts how not too long ago, progressives complained about centralized internet services, lack of net neutrality, the copyright cartel and the centralized financial system, but all of a sudden they love all of that once they realized they can use all of that to shit on the civil rights of people they don't like, because pesky things like the bill of rights gets in the way of them having the government do it
What on Earth are you talking about? The Online Safety Act is from 2023, meaning the Conservative Government passed it, not the Labour government, and Kier Starmer isn't exactly considered a "progressive" by anyone anyway even if he had.
Are you saying the Labour government should ignore laws it doesn't like and doesn't have time to repeal? Because having a government be outside of the rule of law isn't considered progressive either.
And BTW, all this shit is also happening in the US, same types of bill, and pretty much exclusively by Republican state governments - see https://www.pornhub.com/blog/a... [pornhub.com] . And there's nothing progressive about Republicans - they're literal fascists at this point - so why are you suggesting progressives are doing this when it's almost always the right who are?
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What on Earth are you talking about? The Online Safety Act is from 2023
If you take a moment to have even a tiny bit of situational awareness, you'll notice the guy I replied to says he hopes they die after they win, referring to winning against the Online Safety Act. So I said I hope they keep going. In other words, I'm not talking about the Online Safety Act. But at least you asked, so I'll give you that, but then strangely you kept working on that assumption even though my post is very...obviously...not talking about that.
meaning the Conservative Government passed it, not the Labour government, and Kier Starmer isn't exactly considered a "progressive" by anyone anyway even if he had.
Good for them, I guess? Nor is it relevant.
Are you saying the Labour government should ignore laws it doesn't like and doesn't have time to repeal? Because having a government be outside of the rule of law isn't considered progressive either.
The laws p
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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use all of that to shit on the civil rights of people they don't like
American civil rights do not apply anywhere outside of the USA, particularly not in Great Britain.
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Nobody's perfect.
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If that's what they expect to win, then they'll lose. To win, they'd require a US judge to declare that that the UK's laws on confirming ages is "that the foreign judgment is repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States. For the purposes of this paragraph, a judgment is repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States".
In case you've been under a rock the last year or two, US states - well, red ones for the most part, have been falling over themselves to create age verification laws,
Re:Sued in a US court (Score:5, Informative)
why would Ofcom care what a US court decides?
Because, if the US court decides that this UK enforcement action is not in keeping with US law (and US UK treaties), then the US government is duty bound to intercede on behalf of the US business. It becomes a political matter between sovereign nations instead of a business vs a sovereign nation.
One of the functions of the USTR (United States Trade Representative) is to intercede with foreign nations on behalf of US business interests. With a court decision backing the business, the USTR cannot simply ignore the request to intervene -they are legally required to do so.
Re:Sued in a US court (Score:4, Interesting)
Aren't at least some parts of the GOP in favour of this though? Porn bans, age verification etc. I read that some states introduced it, Republican ones. Some sites blocked them in response.
I wonder if there could be unintended consequences. If a foreign state can't require them to do age checks, can a US state where they aren't based require it?
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If a foreign state can't require them to do age checks, can a US state where they aren't based require it?
Yep, the SCOTUS upheld Texas's age verification law. [apnews.com] It's entirely ass backwards to expect websites to comply with all the laws of everywhere they could possibly be accessed from, but here we are.
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Aren't at least some parts of the GOP in favour of this though? Porn bans, age verification etc.
Sure. That is a political issue, so the USTR might conceivably ignore requests for intervention... unless there is a court order to back up the request. Even with a court order, the USTR can decide that it is not in the interest of the United States to act on the matter. But they would be compelled to make an official decision -on the record (something no official wants). The court order could also be used to shield the business from bank actions, etc.
I wonder if there could be unintended consequences. If a foreign state can't require them to do age checks, can a US state where they aren't based require it?
No. It is a separate issue. No relevant precedent
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Aren't at least some parts of the GOP in favour of this though? Porn bans, age verification etc. I read that some states introduced it, Republican ones. Some sites blocked them in response.
I wonder if there could be unintended consequences. If a foreign state can't require them to do age checks, can a US state where they aren't based require it?
For all of the heehaw, the fix is fairly simple. If the UK demands to know who is using the web, no need for fines, no need for court cases. You geoblock them - then the UK can make VPN's illegal, that you connect from a pinch point located in the country, have really good monitoring of their citizens, and you now have safety for all, not just thinking of the children.
And if any ISP and website operator understands that this overarches way past children seeing peen and Vagene, the UK might find itself h
There is a bigger game at play here (Score:5, Interesting)
This then puts sheepish third-party companies in the awkward position of having to justify complying with Ofcom requirements to the detriment of their own user base but not that of say Roscomnadzor or any other stupid government-related censorship organisation, and any justifications they did make, they would have to put explicitly in their terms and conditions for anyone to read, as it would form part of a material contractual agreement.
I hope 4chan/Kiwifarms set the precedent they need and I hope our Labour government here in the UK learns a very big lesson about who the Internet really belongs to, namely, us, the users.
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Except that some US states enforce age verification too now.
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Cloudflare has no intention of complying either, also KF was booted off cloudflare a few years back for terrorism.
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I'm not a big fan of censorship, including this specific law, but I think like
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Surely if the same principle applies - why would Ofcom care what a US court decides?
It does apply. I believe the terms of the suit here to be symbolic, effectively a f-you to Ofcom and putting them on a receiving end of the same bullshit they dish out to other companies who have no business in the UK. Even if a court finds in favour of 4chan there's no actual impact. But it's doing what it needs to: raising awareness.
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Try running a UK based porn site and not requiring age verification from visitors in Utah, which did this 2 years before the UK, (or most other US states by this point) and see how long it is before you're in court.
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These sites should just block visitors from the UK because they have no intent of complying anyway.
The US (Score:3)
Re:The US (Score:4, Insightful)
bullies foreign companies in the same exact way.
We're definitely not any better, as the whole TikTok saga demonstrates. Though, TikTok does have a US presence and since it's accessed by Americans primarily via its mobile app, that necessitates having business relationships with our domestic smartphone duopolies.
If TikTok was just a website run entirely out of China, the US government would basically have to take a page out of China's own playbook and block it with our own "great firewall".
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TikTok isn't going anywhere. The Whitehouse now has an official account. https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
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We did technically pass a law banning it. Trump just ordered the government not to enforce it and... well... yeah, that's awkward.
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Its another tick in the evidence box for the "US doesnt have laws or a constiitution anymore, just executive orders" theory. Tiktok is straight up illegal in the US now, and the whitehouse opened that account *after* the ban took effect. Laws are for poors.
Re: The US (Score:3)
The USA has long held that if any US citizen is involved, or even if mails cross a US server, the US has jurisdiction.
How does it feel if the shoe is on the other foot?
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That a UK citizen can just suffer under the regime of whatever host country they find themselves dealing with? No input allowed from their government? Or that UK data must unquestionably comply with whatever regime it happens to find itself in? The UK government's opinions on the matter be dammed?
Somehow, I don't think that is the outcome the UK is hoping for.
I'm a little confused about this (Score:2)
If these sites are wholly US based, couldn't the operators just throw the fines into the garbage? Hate to say it, but China's already figured this one out - if you don't trust your citizens to venture out onto the global internet, you put up a firewall. The rest of the world has no obligation to follow the UK's (or anyone else's) laws.
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The rest of the world has no obligation to follow the UK's (or anyone else's) laws.
No but they still want to earn money based on page views from the UK (and others). So these companies usually compromise. They mainly want to make money, not win a point.
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No but they still want to earn money based on page views from the UK (and others).
4chan is an anonymous shitposting forum, and Kiwi Farms is most accurately described as a far-right cesspool of hate speech. They're both textbook examples of the 1A being stretched to the absolute limit of its interpretation. I doubt very many sponsors want to be associated with either of the sites, so money based on page views probably isn't a huge factor here.
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It's more of the UK trying to implement political censorship at a global level. The EU has similar ambitions. The Biden Administration was trying it in the US as well. While you very well don't agree with the content on these sites, they are actually fighting for your rights as well as their own in this matter.
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You might want to call it political censorship if you want but it certainly isn't "at a global level". They only define conditions for viewers from the UK.
It is at a global level (Score:2)
If you as a website operator are now processing geolocation information t
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It forces non-UK services available to worldwide audiences to either discriminate between users by nationality
It only forces them to follow UK law if they intend to show contents to UK users. They could easily geoblock the UK, and geoblocking is a normal thing to do nowadays when local regulations are unpleasant to them e.g. GDPR.
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It forces non-UK services available to worldwide audiences to either discriminate between users by nationality
It only forces them to follow UK law if they intend to show contents to UK users. They could easily geoblock the UK, and geoblocking is a normal thing to do nowadays when local regulations are unpleasant to them e.g. GDPR.
Absolutely. I already geoblock Europe from sites I run. So the UK will get that treatment as well. Now my sites are pretty innocuous, but I started geoblocking when the whole consent for cookies and right to forget came out.
But then there is the question of what all manner of things "harm the children"? Lot's of different people have lots of different axes to grind.
Should children be allowed access to new sites? Apparently harm is done to the wee ones if they see the news https://www.msn.com/en-us/ne [msn.com]
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It only forces them to follow UK law if they intend to show contents to UK users. They could easily geoblock the UK, and geoblocking is a normal thing to do nowadays when local regulations are unpleasant to them e.g. GDPR.
If I am sitting on US soil, complying with US law, then I do not need to lift a finger to comply with a UK edict. Altering my server's configuration to add CIDRs to a block list is a positive action that I am not required to take, nor is the hassle or expense of subscribing to a geoblocking service.
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no matter how Ofcom tries to spin things, and the idea that any changes made only affect British users is bunk.
Of course it is, anyone connecting can just say they are not a Brit (IP geolocation doesn't matter, Offcom says the site must protect UK citizens anywhere in the world, not other citizens browsing from UK).
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no matter how Ofcom tries to spin things, and the idea that any changes made only affect British users is bunk.
Of course it is, anyone connecting can just say they are not a Brit (IP geolocation doesn't matter, Offcom says the site must protect UK citizens anywhere in the world, not other citizens browsing from UK).
The must still think the sun never sets on the British Empire.
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If they want this kind of legislation, then they should be mandated to self identify all of their currently used IPs to the world, regardless of block allocation, and keep it up to date, to the seco
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Re: I'm a little confused about this (Score:2)
And nobody will miss them as nothing of value will be lost.
The idea that unfettered free speech is somehow a good idea is very specific to the USA, and demonstrably a stupid idea in a lot of cases. Even the USA has had to restrict speech. But they haven't had a genocidal war yet, so I presume they really have no clue.
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The problem is on the implementation side.
It is very hard to create a system that can effectively control speech without turning it into a dystopia, specially when half of the people making the system want to turn it into a dystopia because they want their personal opinions enforced.
It took 1 day to the "kids protection program" from UK to turn into a political dissent blocking tool.
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You should walk onto a reservation sometime and ask a few natives if they think America has had any genocidal wars.
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KF is worse than that. They actively promote domestic terrorism.
Sites like KF (LC is another one) only exist because their hosting is in fact, NOT in the US. They're usually hosted somewhere that has no US law reach because they know while they might slide under the 1A, what they post is incitement to violence and defamation which is not protected speech. The sites continue to exist the same reason why your typical piracy torrent site still exists. It's far more likely that law enforcement is actually on th
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No but they still want to earn money based on page views from the UK (and others).
These sites earn no money in the UK have no UK customers, no UK registered business interests. Even with localised UK adverts the actual business dealings are retained in the USA. 4chan is not some multinational.
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Yeah but if they are doing localised ads in the UK, that means they are being paid by UK companies and the UK government can step in and seize the money.
Those websites really want to keep that money.
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No they aren't, that's not how the ad industry works. They are serving ads from an advertising multinational corporation and getting paid by that advertising multinational - usually Google. Just because an ad is for a UK product doesn't mean they have any dealings with either the UK or any UK company. The UK government can't go to America and seize money changing hands between two American companies from an American bank account. That's what you are proposing.
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Then you travel into the UK, and whoops. Or you have a plane layover in Ol' Blighty. Or there's a storm at your destination airport and your plane gets rerouted.
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Then you travel into the UK, and whoops.
Considering the content those sites host, the site operators probably shouldn't be visiting any country which lacks really strong free speech protections.
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If these sites are wholly US based, couldn't the operators just throw the fines into the garbage?
They can, but how does that raise awareness of the issue? The point here is symbolic and to get media attention. The point here is to start a propaganda fight in the hope that the UK doesn't just put a great firewall up and block the sites.
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The point here is to start a propaganda fight in the hope that the UK doesn't just put a great firewall up and block the sites.
We're kind of heading in that direction anyway. Even without the great firewall, when the site itself decides to do their own blocking it's effectively the same thing. Examples:
Redgifs: Dear User, ...
As you may know, your elected officials in florida are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website
Pornhub: Dear user, ...
As you may know, your elected officials in Florida are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website
Eastboys: (just FYI to anyone
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You're not missing much. Those eastern European guys just lie there hissing at each other.
I think you mean it's more like a hollow victory, since it isn't requiring the usual age verification. Seriously though, as near as I can tell it's a typical paid adult site where they have the most boring 15-second previews available to watch for free, and everything else requires a credit card (which more-or-less should satisfy an age check requirement law anyway).
For the time being, discussion forums and social media are still exempt from age checks, so there's plenty of porn on Reddit and X. But I'm s
Re:I'm a little confused about this (Score:4, Interesting)
>The point here is to start a propaganda fight in the hope that the UK doesn't just put a great firewall up and block the sites.
Or more precisely, to wage a propaganda battle *before* the UK puts up the firewall to block them (which they pretty much *have* to do now because of the online safety act). By getting media attention, it lets 4chan say "not our fault, look, we really tried to make this work" when the UK does eventually block them, and potentially gets them US government muscle too.
The stupid thing here is the UK government really put itself into a corner with this - they knew it was going to happen because they were told it would. They did it anyway, and now this is the result. Ofcom *had* to sue 4chan, 4chan was never going to pay up, so the only option left for Ofcom is to block them (which again, they have to do). Now it's all over the media, the orange idiot gets involved, then the UK PM gets in trouble, and then... we'll we'll see, but there's going to be egg on someone's face over this.
Personally, I'd like to see the whole online safety act repealed and completely thought through again. There are better ways to protect kids, and the other nefarious reasons for it frankly need to go the way of the dodo. Sadly I suspect that won't happen though.
4 way tug of war (Score:3)
Team 1: The UK internet users
Team 2: Ofcom (UK FCC equivalent) and the UK Parliament
Team 3: The service providers 4Chan and Kiwi
Team 4: Trump's Tariffs
Possible outcomes:
1. The UK government and Ofcom relent
2. The UK erects a "Great UK firewall"
3. The service providers decide not to serve UK residents.
4. Trump imposes crushing tariffs on the UK because of this
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I'm putting my bets on 2 or 3. 4 is also a possiblity, with or without 2 or 3.
1 won't happen merely because of a lawsuit, but it might happen if Trump decides to put eleventy-billion-percent tarrifs on the UK in response.
Register a complaint (Score:2, Troll)
I see Ofcom has a form for submitting complaints.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/make-... [ofcom.org.uk]
You know what to do and how to do it!
Kiwi farms kaput? (Score:2)
I'd never heard of Kiwi Farms, but it appears as if Cloudflare have.
https://www.couriermail.com.au... [couriermail.com.au]
Is it possible (Score:2)
So, let me get this straight... (Score:4, Informative)
4chan is a US company that has been delivering services to people in the UK and getting revenue from that traffic. UK law says that if you deliver service in the UK and meet certain criteria then you need to verify the users' age. They didn't comply, and the UK said "If you continue to deliver services into the UK that don't comply with the law then we will sanction you with both fines and blocking your traffic." They said "Screw you" to the regulator. Now when Ofcom asks UK ISPs to block their traffic, Ofcom is an "industry-funded global censorship bureau" and "Ofcom's ambitions are to regulate Internet communications for the entire world, regardless of where these websites are based or whether they have any connection to the UK,"
They're having a laugh.
If they deliver service in the UK then the service delivered into UK needs to comply with UK law. It's pretty simple. It's not like there's no internet geolocation technology. Most of the other sites that are covered by this law have worked out how to deliver UK-specific age verification. It's not that hard.
Personally I think that the UK's new law is ridiculously misguided and broken, not to mention unlikely to achieve what it sets out to do, but telling a business that their service in the UK needs to be compliant with current UK law is not an attempt "to regulate Internet communications for the entire world". They are welcome to join all the other people who are lobbying for the law be repealed. In the meantime they need to comply or cease local service.
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4chan is a US company that has been delivering services to people in the UK and getting revenue from that traffic.
People have such a backwards view of the internet. The user accesses a server and can access it from anywhere. That's the whole point of the internet. If we insist on having a bunch of country-specific laws for any site on the internet. . .there will be no internet.
I wholly understand that if a website sells products that it ships to users, those products better adhere to local laws. But in this case, the users are just accessing a server. If you don't like that users can access the server, then take it up
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I think the entire point is to break the internet.
So...let's give it to them. Every US provider and datacenter should start blocking all connections from the UK. Allow none of their packets to pass through our country.
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Stop it while there is time. Currently a lot of countries are planning age verification laws that could result in the end of anonymity online, either having you identify on sites, or having sites like Facebook requiring your ID so they can act as identify provider for you. If now ever second site blocks the UK, other countries will think twice about introducing the same laws.
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Geolocation technology? So Brits abroad or using VPN are not included in this Offcom protection? Unfortunately Offcom says the law is about validating age of UK citizens, not anyone browsing from the UK. This means an American in UK is fine to browse without age verification, and Brit in the US must be verified.
So now you will have to provide proof you aren't a UK citizen? Can't do that without passing the age verification test at the same time.
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Actually, it is hard. Since VPNs etc. exist, anyone using geolocation technology to block people from the UK will actually be not blocking some people from the UK, as well as blocking other people not fr
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Actually, it is hard. Since VPNs etc. exist, anyone using geolocation technology to block people from the UK will actually be not blocking some people from the UK, as well as blocking other people not from the UK.
Then you make VPN's illegal to use in Great Britain. Caught using a VPN, you go to jail. The children are safe.
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Is there actually the possibility of blocking the site?
I think a lot of ISPs block it anyway, as well as many sites that allegedly serve up pirate content. With the new age verification rules, a VPN is pretty much mandatory in the UK now.
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Let's try to explain it this way:
Let's say I own a radio station. My radio station complies with all the laws in my country.
You're a country next door. You say my radio station violates your laws and I must comply with them.
Now...does my radio station serve the people of that other country? You say yes...because your people can hear them. I say no...because the fact they can pick them up is beyond my control.
Ultimately I will do nothing and tell you to fuck off.
At this point I'm in full support of outright
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Regulatory authority cannot be based on things simply being accessible over the internet. That grants unlimited authority to every governmen
So kiwi farms cannot survive a law like this (Score:3)
This is one of those cases where the worst sort of person is doing something that needs to be done. But for kiwi farms I have genuine mixed emotions because they are hiding behind anonymity to commit actual crimes.
I suppose it's possible they cleaned up their act a little bit because they were taken offline when even the cdns who run the white supremacists wouldn't touch them because of the legal liability. But either way that's the whole point of going to kiwi farms so I'm not sure what else they would do.
4chan has problems but there is at least a community there that aren't just cruel psychopaths. Honestly if the owner wasn't such an ass wipe I think the form would be pretty nice.
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This is one of those cases where the worst sort of person is doing something that needs to be done.
Not really. We didn't need the internet's clown car and septic tank to save us from UK age checks. The SCOTUS already said our domestic ones are perfectly legal, so they're coming, like it or not. This is more a case of the US government getting an opportunity to say "You don't get to abuse the rights of our citizens, that's our job!"
I suppose it's possible they cleaned up their act a little bit because they were taken offline when even the cdns who run the white supremacists wouldn't touch them because of the legal liability.
I doubt it. Even if you pump out a septic tank, soon enough it fills right back up with shit. Seems someone claiming to represent Kiwi Farms has an account on X (Keepin'
\o/ (Score:2)
I don't see why being from the UK should mean that we're subject to the whims of these people who have decided they're in charge simply because they have a monopoly on tools of coercive force.
UK citizens have as much influence over the rules the UK establishment try to use to coerce us as US citizens - zero.
Funding (Score:2)
The deeper issue is speech regulation in the UK (Score:3)
Never visited either of the organizations that are bringing this suit.
But the deeper issue is what is happening to the regulation of speech in the UK. It is that recent legislation has enabled the selective enforcement of bans on politically incorrect speech in a way that was never possible before. It has enabled the repression of public dissent.
There have been a large number of piecemeal pieces of legislation on speech which interact in perhaps unexpected ways with an environment of heightened sensitivity to speech. Taken as a whole they empower the authorities to intervene on speech deemed to be offensive.
But the issue is, they empower and enable, they don't mandate action. Because the definitions of offense are so wide and vague the legislation enables intervention on speech which would previously have been considered normal if a bit extreme. Enables, however, it does not require it. This means that the UK is now set up with all the apparatus required for selective banning of speech which is deemed to be inconvenient or politically incorrect. And its being used.
To appreciate the ramifications you need to look at some specific cases. Go to the Free Speech Union site.
https://freespeechunion.org/ [freespeechunion.org]
And consider how police recording of non-criminal hate crime incidents is working. Look up the case of Alison Pearson
https://freespeechunion.org/aw... [freespeechunion.org]
And as another example, remember the wonderful case of Harry Miller
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
Miller had posted in the tradition of Monty Python about gender issues, culminating in the deeply offensive remark that he might have been born a mammal but identified as a fish, so do not mis-species him!
He was called on by the police who explained that this would be recorded and filed against him as a non-criminal hate incident. The BBC story explains how in this case the courts ruled in his favor. That was before recent legislation however. Don't know what the outcome would be today.
You have in the UK a perfect storm. There is the Online Safety Act, the Public Order Act, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act and a few other pieces of legislation or amendments. There is no 1st Amendment. And there is corporate and police practice.
Let me give one final example which will make the implications clear. In Parliament an MP called Katie Lam gave a speech on the grooming gang scandal. X imposed age restrictions on viewing quotations from it, in accordance with their view of the requirements of the Online Safety Act. So we end up with a situation in which legislation written vaguely and widely to prevent minors from accessing harmful content can in practice be obliging someone to prove they are over 18 in order to see remarks made by an elected MP in a session of their own Parliament. Now ask yourself how the Online Safety Act could interact with the various other Acts on the subject of speech, and you will see where the real problem lies.
Incidentally, consider also the implications of having to prove you are over 18 to access something. You give your proof. To an unknown third party. And what do they do with the information they now hold on you? How do you know what they do with it? 4Chan or whoever is not the issue, there are far more serious issues with the UK speech regulation situation. You don't have to be a free speech fanatic to find this disturbing. The end destination of this is a Great Wall of Britain, and a ban on VPNs. Which are now attracting great interest in the UK.
Speedrunning Orwell (Score:2)
UK is really speedrunning 1984 and it is scary how much the EU is poised to follow.
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You do realise some US states are well ahead on the UK on this