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4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC
- sunshine-o 1y agoI assumed 4chan didn't exist anymore and it was renamed/replaced by another board... Great advertisement. The UK acts like a madman on fire trying to attack everybody.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bentlegen 1y agoIt stopped being relevant because its content became acceptable on major social networks, beginning in late 2022.
- firesteelrain 1y agoWhat content in particular?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoThe stuff that Free Speech Absolutists like to say on twitter, judging by the date they included. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon...
- watwut 1y ago[flagged]
- PicassoCTs 1y agoListen. The lies, the culture relativist lies, they are so tiresome. We now all have ghaza at home- and we see through it all now. You do not have the slightest idea of the world, you just have that approximation made out of your own feelings and you yank on all social levers to make it real. Im sorry the world made you unable to appreciate complexity and handle it especially when its hostile to western values. But the grown ups have to clean up your mess now. Why not go and play in your corner, with the other problems, you could play "nazi and revolutionary" all day long. Thank you..
- dmonitor 1y agoracism
- ux266478 1y agoMajor social networks aren't even remotely close to being in the same niche. There are no algorithms, no friction with accounts, no obtrusive interfaces or feature bloat, no likes, no post ratings, content is completely ephemeral. This is a common and fundamental misunderstanding I see people make when trying to understand why 4chan exists. The people who post on 4chan aren't doing it because they can't help but post edgy content, they're doing it because its web 1.0 approach to social media completely erases a whole load of annoyances and anti-patterns that are endemic in the modern web. Just like Usenet, it will probably never die despite the antisocial controversies. Or at least in the case of 4chan, it will be replaced with another board-type system. As Twitch streamers are the contemporary version of AM radio, 4chan is the contemporary version of BBSes. You should be extremely skeptical of the idea that you could ever compete in the same space with a heavily commercialized product like a modern social network. Twitter is not a replacement, it never will be.
- dkiebd 1y agoMost people in websites like HN have absolutely no idea what 4chan is, how it works, and what kind of things people post in there. It shows because every time you read a comment here about 4chan you are confused as to what website they may be talking about.
- OldfieldFund 1y agoTwitter is really not far from 4chan in 2025.
- dmonitor 1y agoThat's understating it. They're practically the same at this point, 4chan just has fewer bots.
- hellojesus 1y ago4chan doesn't manipulate the feed, so far as I know. Nor does it require a phone number to use. It blocks mainstream vpns, but that's about it. Behind the scenes, who knows, but it's not as obviously full of low effort bait as Twitter, and no account is necessary.
- catsma21 1y agothere's more boards than just /b/
- LAC-Tech 1y ago4chan is to Twitter what Reddit is to Hacker News.
- Bender 1y agoIn a way it does not exist any more. Most of the threads are started by 4chan-GPT yes this is a thing and most replies to threads are 4chan-GPT. They uses 4chan passes to allow proxies and not have to deal with a craptcha. Anyone could start their own chan, implement GPT bots and have the same level of popularity. I would wager a dozen HN'ers could implement this in a day. I think the goal on 4chan is controlling the narrative. My question would be, would HN'ers also use bots to control the narratives on their chans or create the same daily and weekly threads?
- gs17 1y ago> yes this is a thing and most replies to threads are 4chan-GPT Do you have proof of this?
- Bender 1y agoThey bragged about it for a while but after the bragging stopped my proof is only anecdotal. When the United States Agency for International Development was defunded the bots went quiet and shortly thereafter the site was hacked using a vulnerability that had been well known since 2012. It was peaceful for a few weeks prior to the hack and for a couple weeks after the hack. Most of the fake racists disappeared from /pol/ and /g/ stopped shilling products. It was just real people and the site was just as active as the hundreds of other chans. Best I can tell 4chan is a test site to fine tune social manipulation GPT's. All the bots, fake racists and shillers are back now suggesting to me the manipulators started getting funded by other means. Before someone says it, there are a few real racists there too. The bots attract and egg them on. Most moved to 8chan. I think that is part of the experiment and tuning. Perhaps some day the veil will be lifted.
- bananalychee 1y agoIf that's true you should be able to see that in the public traffic statistics.
- Bender 1y ago
- nickslaughter02 1y ago> Two days later, US Federal Trade Commission chairman Andrew Ferguson warned big tech firms they could be violating US law if they weakened privacy and data security requirements by complying with international laws such as the Online Safety Act. How will this work with chat control? > "If Ofcom doesn't think this will be enough to prevent significant harm, it can even ask that ISPs be ordered to block UK access." If you want to enforce stupid laws the burden should be upon you.
- net01 1y ago> How will this work with chat control? There is no POC for a chat control E2E-compliant chat app and there will never be. this will just kill EU made software because they will be forced to comply, while US software will use real E2E as marketing.
- pitched 1y agoThe UK isn’t part of the EU anymore. As I understand it, this doesn’t apply to the broader group.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- arlcode 1y agoAs others gave said the UK left the EU 10 years ago. Chat control (which isn't (yet) a thing) would not in fact lead to the outcome you describe. Any company would be forced to comply or get the boot from EU market. Apple and Google will happily enforce that and that's probably good enough initially. US Vendors could also decide to create an EU only version of their services.
- speedylight 1y agoI think eventually we will reach a point where laws like the Online Safety Act become so prevalent that it is basically impossible to comply with all of them simultaneously and still have a unified internet across the globe. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years or so every country has its own version of the internet only intended for their own people.
- net01 1y agoOfcom can fine 4chan all it wants, but without UK assets those penalties are unenforceable, they have no power here. This is why the US dropped tea into Boston to have it's own Freedom.
- blibble 1y ago> This is why the US dropped tea into Boston to have it's own Freedom. the 3% tariff on Chinese tea was seen as oppressive don't look at what has been imposed this year (without congressional approval)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zdragnar 1y agoThe tariff was oppressive in large part because the colonies didn't have representation in Parliament and were allowed limited (and decreasing) local governance. The Stamp, Townshend and Intolerable Acts were a whole lot more than just "we don't wanna pay taxes".
- doka_smoka 1y agoI don't feel represented on the national or international stage AT ALL. Maybe I'll stop paying mine.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> I don't feel represented on the national or international stage AT ALL. Maybe I'll stop paying mine. Now gather a huge group of friends who are willing to fight for this cause (and for whose this cause is so important that they can accept ending in jail or even worse).
- DeusExMachina 1y agoBe careful what you ask for. History has proven that such a group will exist at some point.
- jmclnx 1y ago>If Ofcom doesn't think this will be enough to prevent significant harm, it can even ask that ISPs be ordered to block UK access. Well again I guess the UK never heard of VPNs, but they are trying to ban them still, it is like these pols have no clue how the internet works. They never learn these actions are like playing wack-a-mole.
- pitched 1y agoIt feels more like a modern version of Luddites where they probably do understand very well how it works and they fear what that means for their own success.
- jeroenhd 1y agoVPNs are next: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
- Joker_vD 1y agoSo they're lagging about 3-4 years behind the Russian practices, but steadily catching up. Quite impressive!
- sunaookami 1y agoPar for the course for European countries.
- sunrunner 1y agoI’m curious about what the plan is to differentiate between legitimate business use and personal use of any kind. Age verification obviously won’t work for self-hosted, so does age verification then get pushed to VPS providers? And at that point, so what? I’m already paying with legitimate bank details for legitimate personal use.
- morkalork 1y agoA VPN license of course! Just need a corporation number, a list of registered employees, and mandatory logging to get one! /s
- idiomat9000 1y agoDesperate politicians ,steering desperately against the right wing tide they created by showing everyone the reality of mass immigration to keep their business models and world afloat .
- geremiiah 1y ago4chan isn't rightwing and it never was, but since 2016 and especially since 2020 the userbase has been moving to the left, because at its core 4chan is always counter culture.
- idiomat9000 1y agoBut 4chan is most of all pro free speach, which is a different axis, which has opponents left, right and center .
- immibis 1y agoWhich speech is it pro free? It's not all speech. People get banned from 4chan.
- ACCount37 1y ago4chan is the edgy counterculture, yes. So when the mainstream was leaning towards christian and right, it was leaning anti-theist libertarian left. When the mainstream swung to the left, 4chan shifted too and became more right-leaning, and took a stance of performative opposition to political correctness. A similar shift is happening now - away from right wing again as right wing is becoming more mainstream.
- none_to_remain 1y agoThe matter was settled in 1783
- Finnucane 1y agoso I guess the UK will have to build Hadrian’s Firewall to keep everybody out.
- macinjosh 1y agoOfcom's only card now is to have UK ISPs block 4chan. When that happens will Starlink comply? maybe. what if they block X? could get messy fast.
- perihelions 1y agoI'd be totally un-shocked if the UK criminalized Starlink (over OSA or otherwise), in part because they've already criminalized it before, in some of their territories[0,1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979869 ("Starlink in the Falkland Islands – A national emergency situation? (openfalklands.com)"—225 comments) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945 ("Saint Helena Island Communications (sainthelenaisland.info)"—145 comments)
- incone123 1y agoThat barely got covered in the UK news, but if wealthy rural people (who don't have good wired or cellular internet) get told their Starlink is getting banned it will be much more newsworthy.
- net01 1y agoImagine if some tech like DNS over UHF radio What could the UK do?
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> Imagine if some tech like DNS over UHF radio What could the UK do? Criminalize this usage of UHF radio.
- justlikereddit 1y agoThey'll just maintain course on their mission to make everything illegal no matter the technical details. Starting with whatever allows criticism of their parody of a farce of so called leadership.
- subscribed 1y ago
- nickdothutton 1y agoStep 1, pass law. Step 2, demand compliance. Step 3, upon not hearing of compliance, levy fines. Step 4, upon non payment of fines, declare in breach of (2). Step 5, block site from UK using DNS, in the same manner as torrent sites etc. 5 was always the goal, 2 to 4 are largely just performative.
- fruitworks 1y agoStep 6: Someome buys (or steals) a new domain to mirror the site. Or piggybacks a subdomain. Step 7: Rinse and repeat, fueling the domain-bureaucracy complex. Oceania has always been at war with the pirate bay!
- username332211 1y agoHow does step 5 work? Switching DNS servers is trivial.
- postexitus 1y agoFor you - not for 99% of the public.
- username332211 1y agoEhh, if a youth of digital piracy has taught me anything, it's that people will develop the necessary computer literacy to get the entertainment they want. Even if they've completely failed to develop that same skill in the pursuit of self improvement. I feel that says something about human psychology. Probably something very unpleasant.
- anonym29 1y agoHuman adaptivity is perhaps both our biggest strength and biggest weakness. It's the same force behind our greatest innovations and our greatest tragedies, and even fuels the apathetic indifference towards those tragedies, too.
- 1y ago
- FergusArgyll 1y agoHe has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
- fruitworks 1y agoI wouldn't be so sure it's an ideological stand. 4chan got hacked a while back because they were running a totally outdated software stack. It's been pretty much abandoned by its owner hiromoot. If they aren't going to update the site for basic maintainance, they definitely aren't going to implement all this chat control/ age verification bullcrap. I suppose a resistance to change is good when your competitors are burying their own graves.
- OgsyedIE 1y agoIf the owner doesn't care about it and it's got such a strong network effect, what's stopping somebody from buying it and implementing the SomethingAwful monetization model, where it's free until you get banned and then $10 for every unbanning?
- lm28469 1y agoYou can ban 75% of the web if your concern is outdated tech stacks and/or data breaches
- kayxspre 1y agoThis is similar to how Wikipedia reacts to Internet Watch Foundation (a UK CSAM Watchdog) when it decided to block the page "Virgin Killer" (a 1976 album by German band Scorpions) and the album cover image page. FBI found no issue with it, but the UK did. The result means ISP using the IWF blocklist are getting their traffic routed to proxy server, and Wikipedia usually blocks open proxies. Eventually, news outlet reproduced the artwork in question, rendering the block moot, and IWF rescinded the block a few days later [1] I wonder if 4chan will simply decide to ban visitors from UK from visiting based on regulatory compliance. Sometimes when I accidentally clicked on a streaming sites that were not available in my country, their error page will be simply "This content isn't available in your country", but the URL contains GDPR, even though the site is not EU-based at all, and that I'm not visiting it from EU country either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation_and_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation_and_...
- GoblinSlayer 1y ago>FBI found no issue with it Because it's art?
- IshKebab 1y agoYeah similar except 4chan has no power and Wikipedia has a huge amount of power.
- drankl 1y ago[flagged]
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago> the site administrators have willingly chosen to not follow UK law while still allowing UK residents to access the site. I happily don't follow a lot of countries' laws. 'Willingly', is another matter which implies malfeasance of some sort.
- maxk42 1y ago"Allowing" UK residents to access the site? The UK is not the police of the Internet. 4chan is not a UK site and does not have to be aware of UK law. If the UK doesn't like it then it's their responsibility to stop their residents from accessing it. 4chan is complying with all the laws that apply to them.
- drankl 1y agoWhich is why it'll probably end up getting blocked at the ISP level for non-compliance.
- BallsInIt 1y agoI thought 4chan already blocked UK IPs. Why is Ofcom still pursuing this?
- cmcaleer 1y agoFor the same reason Roskomnadzor makes demands of Wikipedia to remove information it doesn't like: to impotently make demands of entities that will obviously not comply so there can be some theatrics before blocking them or marking them as an evil non-compliant entity. It's truly baffling stuff. If Roskomnadzor made demands of a UK-based website before dramatically fining them massive amounts daily (that will obviously never be collected), people would rightfully treat them as a laughing stock. Yet when Ofcom treats a foreign entity the same way, they somehow expect to be treated seriously. Honestly 4chan treated this with far more respect than it was due by having their lawyers respond at all.
- unit149 1y ago[dead]
- gherkinnn 1y agoIf the UK really cared about child abuse, they'd go after the churches first. And let's not forget Jimmy Savile. But we all know thinking of the children is a pretext.
- throwrrt 1y ago[dead]
- billy99k 1y agoThe UK started arresting people that posted differing opinions a few years ago. There were no articles or outcry and this is what it has led to.
- andrewaylett 1y agoAmericans complaining about extra-territorial application of laws? As much as I dislike the OSA, if you're not in the UK you can -- and probably should -- just ignore it. Unless you care specifically about interacting with users or businesses in the UK, in which case you probably need to comply. Unlike the USA, we're generally incapable of successfully demanding everyone everywhere go along with whatever overreach we might think up.
- DaiPlusPlus 1y ago> Unlike the USA, we're generally incapable of successfully demanding everyone everywhere go along with whatever overreach we might think up. I can understand why someone might think the UK still has as much influence as it did 50-75 years ago when you consider how prevalent that "UKCA" symbol is (the one that was introduced to replace the "CE" mark post-Brexit).
- andrewaylett 1y agoIt's fairly prevalent, but actually the UK government gave up on replacing CE a couple of years ago: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-extension-of-ce-mark-recognition-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-e... I'm sure the companies who put effort into adopting UKCA were really happy to have put in that effort :P. Even if it's I hope not as onerous as adopting it (or CE) from scratch, as they both have quite similar (if not originally identical?) requirements. It seemed more intended to give the impression of Brexit success than of actually making a difference to anything.
- busymom0 1y agoI am Canadian and I worry that usually what happens in UK ends up coming to Canada too.
- lacoolj 1y agoTaxation without representation lol
- lovegrenoble 1y agoFirsr, they need learn to control of what happen on their own island
- immibis 1y agoWhat does this mean?
- random9749832 1y agoHumiliation of the UK continues. Falling into irrelevance / meme territory.
- uncircle 1y agoGood, that’s the only way these unpopular laws might get repealed or reworked, given that the UK citizens can’t or won’t do much about it except collectively shrug. What terrifies me is that the EU is looking at UK’s OSA as a model, and will soon implement it here.
- duxup 1y agoI thought that by the time I was old that the people making the rules would have some understanding of the internet. I'm old now, they don't :(
- jrm4 1y agoAt the risk of being old and optimistic; my gut right now is: GOOD, maybe the antisocial youngn's could perhaps make some real fundamental strides in hacking around/replacing/ doing SOMETHING about DNS as it serves. My old mind is like, COME ON, DNS is just a PHONEBOOK. Just make another one, or do something better.
- ionwake 1y agoThe next step I assume is banning VPN use for anyone under 18 in the UK, followed by only allowing academics or certain roles to use them.
- oblique 1y agoBanning VPNs seems effectively impossible. Any ip address can act as a vpn. There are also zero identity providers like mullvad.
- foxglacier 1y agoDeep packet inspection can detect VPNs. The problem may be more that people have legitimate uses for VPNs, like at their work. Those could be whitelisted though.
- bhelkey 1y agoIn the UK, ~55% of traffic comes from mobile [1]. The UK could approach Apple and Google and ask them to remove VPNs from their respective app stores when opened in the UK. I imagine this would curtail a large proportion of mobile VPN usage. Blocking desktop VPNs would be a bit more adhoc but it is possible to make it much harder for many people to download VPN clients. [1] https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/mobile-vs-desktop-traffic-share/ https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/mobile-vs-desktop...
- jjani 1y agoWatching sports for cheap using a "dodgy firestick" or similar hardware is incredibly popular in the UK to watch sports for cheap even among those not tech-inclined, despite obviously being illegal. I'd predict the same to happen here, quickly you'll see plug-and-play boxes that will route their home wi-fi traffic through a VPN, and most people will have a mate of a mate who sells them for a few tenners.
- prmoustache 1y agoI am pretty sure we are slowly but surely heading towards a point where every country will implement its own great firewall and block every website except those in a whitelist approved by the government.
- chankstein38 1y agoI wish these boomers would stop trying to act like they can control the internet because their citizens are part of it. If they want to do that they should wall their country off like China or NK. Not that I prefer that but this is way worse.
- novok 1y agoWould employees and owners of 4chan get arrested if they ever fly into the UK now?
- RandomBacon 1y ago1. Create a fake LinkedIn profile for your enemy that says they work for 4chan 2. Wait for them to travel to the UK 3. ??? 4. Profit
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- phendrenad2 1y agoI know this is nothing new, but just stop and appreciate how much modern governments have abandoned all decorum and have fully embraced just downright silly levels of signaling. The UK knows that the law has no jurisdiction over US companies, and they know that US companies won't pay it, but they went ahead with it anyway.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoUgh. I never thought I'd say this. I'm with 4chan.
- coolhand2120 1y agoWhile the UK's demands will surely be laughed at, I'm fairly sure George Orwell's estate has a solid copyright claim here against the UK.
- EasyMark 1y agoI really dislike what 4chan is, but I'm also a huge proponent of freedom online. I am glad that 4chan is telling the UK to go pound sand, I just hope they have the foresight to realize that they should not travel there or into countries that might extradite them. It's too bad that the country where 1984 originated is currently doing it's best to put the ideas in that book (the bad ones) to use in subjugating their citizens.
- qwm 1y agoIt's so funny watching the UK try to threaten sites without any jurisdiction. I have American friends who got these letters and openly laughed at them. Sorry buddy, we aren't your colony anymore!