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Preston talks about this in an earlier blog post. It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about ma

• Hizonner 1y ago
  > It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. Basically all countries take that position legally. But there are norms and customs about how often you exercise it (as well as practical questions of power). Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's a bad norm. Not as bad as drone striking anybody who lights a cigarette in Paris (which could be made legal), but a bad norm nonetheless.
  • HPsquared 1y ago
    What happens if two foreign countries try to impose mutually exclusive laws?
    • conartist6 1y ago
      Then they kiss
    • londons_explore 1y ago
      For many years, Google solved this by saying the laws of country X only applied in the country specific domain of Google. They now seem to have backtracked on that and are using either the country the request came from or the country the account was set up from (both using IP geolocation)
    • Tuna-Fish 1y ago
      If they both are able to enforce their laws on you, you get to choose which prison you go to.
  • School-Cotton 1y ago
    Interestingly, Ireland seems to be one of the few countries whose constitution explicitly limits the reach of its laws: > It is the firm will of the Irish nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island. Until then, the laws enacted by the Parliament established by this Constitution shall have the like area and extent of application as the laws enacted by the Parliament that existed immediately before the coming into operation of this Constitution. (Which means the territory of what is now called the Republic of Ireland, that is, explicitly excluding any claim to Northern Ireland in order to comply with the Good Friday agreement)
  • socalgal2 1y ago
    Some activists should start making lots of complaints demanding that country A’s government sites comply with government B’s laws. Maybe the laws will change to reflect reality when government A says to fuck off
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • hilbert42 1y ago
    "Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's a bad norm." Perhaps "Extraterritorial regulation" is bad wording. A country can regulate whether an extraterritorial website is distributed and or viewed within its borders but it has no legal authority force another country to close down a website that's operating legally within its jurisdiction. The only remaining options are diplomatic action—request the site be taken down or war/by force. Whether we like it or not the only practical action is for a country to geoblock offensive websites at its borders. Sadly, given the current state of world affairs, it seems to me geoblocking will become the norm almost everywhere.
    • AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > Perhaps "Extraterritorial regulation" is bad wording. A country can regulate whether an extraterritorial website is distributed and or viewed within its borders but it has no legal authority force another country to close down a website that's operating legally within its jurisdiction. The issue is they're doing this through might makes right rather than jurisdictional authority. You have a website in one country, 99% of the content is legal in another country but it also contains a post by a user which is legal in the first country and not the second. The second country then demands that the website remove the post -- for everyone, they don't even want it accessible via VPN -- or they'll have their ISPs block not just the entire website but also the entire shared hosting provider the website uses. The site which is entirely in the other jurisdiction can't withstand that much pressure and removes the post. You now have a country censoring a post world-wide because they leveraged every company within their jurisdiction to enforce a law against one that isn't. That's extraterritorial regulation.
      • exe34 1y ago
        > You now have a country censoring a post world-wide because they leveraged every company within their jurisdiction to enforce a law against one that isn't. That's extraterritorial regulation. Hopefully this will break up the cartel of websites/distributors back into a decentralised web eventually.
• fukka42 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • gerdesj 1y ago
    American companies were appropriating IP or trade secrets as they were called when Birmingham was known as Brummagen. Nowadays we have China, int al, doing the same sort of job. Nothing changes.
    • tempodox 1y ago
      Who is “int al”?
      • 1over137 1y ago
        Probably meant “et al”, Latin for “and others”.
        • throw_a_grenade 1y ago
          inter alia, “among others”
          • gerdesj 1y ago
            Yes: inter alia: amongst other things Sorry, I'm a bit old school. When you get AI waffle spitting out abbreviated Latin, you will know the end of the world is nigh! EDIT: Spell out my preferred translation of int. al.
            • tempodox 1y ago
              Ha, with the dots I would have realized what it is. I was confused by the 1st version having no dots.
  • hunterpayne 1y ago
    No the US doesn't do that. We had to make special international treaties which involved getting other governments to sign up for that (in exchange for other concessions). Stop inventing things that never happened just to excuse your politicians bad behavior. PS Arresting foreigners for things that happened outside of your territory is an act of war.
• hunterpayne 1y ago
  Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK government, the US could actually enforce this stuff in person. The US literally has military bases outside London with tanks and artillary and airstrips. This isn't a road to continue down. PS The UK doesn't have free speech and never has. Free Speech was invented by the Dutch and the US was the first to put it in a founding document. PPS I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners. That is outside the definition of sovereignty and something the UK government seems to have invented lately.
  • mike_hearn 1y ago
    > PPS I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners. The USA does this quite regularly. Look at FATCA as one example.
    • hunterpayne 1y ago
      That law only covers US citizens (that are living abroad). So no, that's not a counter example.
      • Hizonner 1y ago
        Um, no, it attempts to compel foreign banks, which may not even have a presence in the US, to disclose information about US citizens, using various threats. It doesn't threaten to throw foreigners in jail, but it does threaten to use US government "clout" against them... and the actors it's trying to put obligations on are absolutely not US citizens.
        • hunterpayne 1y ago
          Funny how you make tax evasion and money laundering on par with political speech. Fighting for your rights to be corrupt is a pretty weird take. If we can talk someone into doing what we want, that's perfectly legal as long as we or they aren't violating any laws. And nobody complains because getting dirty banks to spill is in everyone's best interests. Remember how happy everyone was at all the FIFA corruption data we uncovered.
• mellosouls 1y ago
  Of course though, it is not just the governments that have force enabled by the internet and the modern age. We need to re-imagine the Parisian as an individual with exceptionally long arms lighting the tip of their cigarette in London...
• hexbin010 1y ago
  > "If Parliament says smoking in Paris is illegal, it is illegal." I'm not entirely sure if you yourself understand the context or real meaning of that phrase, but for others at least, it was NOT meant to highlight that Parliament has a burning desire or real ability to legislate outside of its jurisdiction! Just that it has the legal authority to create any such law, and that the legitimacy of a law is not dependent on its moral content. It's merely a paraphrasing/summary of H.L.A. Hart's legal positivism.
  • alecmuffett 1y ago
    What did Hart say about comity?
    • hexbin010 1y ago
      Why don't you tell us?
  • vessenes 1y ago
    I think I got us there, when I mentioned that they had no means of enforcement, and so the statement was meant as you say - to be absurdist in practice underscoring the national sovereignty at the heart of the discussion. Is that what you think it means, out of curiosity?
• ekidd 1y ago
  > It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the entire founding political mythology of the United States is pretty much "The Parliament of the UK tried to regulate our freedom of speech without even giving us a vote, and that was intolerable." Specifically, the Stamp Act was seen as suppressing the right of the American colonies to engage in political speech. (This wasn't the only reason for the Revolutionary War, but it's one of the ones we still remember. We remember it in part because laws regulating the publishers of political pamphlets get complained about in political pamphlets.) This isn't a political issue in the normal sense. It's more like Guy Fawkes and the "gunpowder treason and plot." The one thing that the "Tea Party" and the "No Kings" protestors can probably still agree about is that the Stamp Act was bad, because this issue is part of the fundamental political mythology of the country. "The British Parliament does not get to regulate our speech" is right up there with "The President does not get to wear a crown." This is not a fight that the UK government can actually win, not in the long run. Any US politician who allows Parliament to regulate the speech of a US citizen will find themselves in the awkward position of British politician who proposed a national monument to Guy Fawkes. Allowing this is "Un-American" in these sense that it goes almost directly against our founding patriotic mythology and symbolism. The UK should just accept the geo-IP block of the UK as a compromise, and walk away. This particular fight isn't worth it. Trust me on this.
• BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  > nations to enforce their own rules outside their own borders by treaty More democratically-elected legislatures ought to say, “We don't give a shit about what our predecessors agreed to.” when it comes to treaties requiring restrictions on their own citizens.