11 ms·

The Ofcom Files, Part 4: Ofcom Rides Again

90 points by parliament32 11mo ago

felixfurtak 11mo ago
This reminds me of the Kim Dotcom saga where US attorneys accused Mega of copyright infringement when he was living in New Zealand and his company, Mega, was based in Hong Kong. Dotcom had never stepped foot in the US but somehow that was enough grounds to extradite him and force him to comply with local laws. There are plenty of examples of judicial overreach in all parts of the world. The US is no exception.
- slillibri 11mo ago
  Hong Kong and New Zealand are Berne Convention countries so that would be the grounds for extradition. I don’t remember other countries signing up to enforce Ofcom’s laws.
  - gpm 11mo ago
    I don't see any evidence Ofcom is currently asking anyone else to enforce their laws. As far as I can they're currently simply taking the steps they can themselves to enforce their laws - i.e. as far as people in the US go sending letters. Letters that put them in a position to levy fines and maybe arrest people in the future should they have the opportunity to, for example if the relevant people travel or have assets in the UK in the future. Or if at some point in the future some country does sign up to enforce Ofcom's laws here and relevant people travel to that country. The US is presumably barred (short of a constitutional amendment) from making such an agreement under the first amendment, but other countries are likely not barred. Just because a government doesn't currently have the power to arrest you doesn't mean they can't internally begin processes to arrest you if/when they get that ability, or that they can't communicate to you that they are doing that. In fact governments of all sorts (including the US) do exactly that against people they can't arrest all the time.
    - inkyoto 11mo ago
      > I don't see any evidence Ofcom is currently asking anyone else to enforce their laws. As far as I can they're currently simply taking the steps they can themselves to enforce their laws - i.e. as far as people in the US go sending letters. It is even more nuanced than that: whilst Ofcom absolutely has legal enforcement powers under UK law – but they are regulatory / civil powers, not criminal powers like the police. Therefore, it probably can even be argued (by deduction as I do not have a degree in law) that particularly in the cross-jurisdictional scenario, Ofcom’s whining about the non-compliance of a website with UK law is null and void.
      - gpm 11mo ago
        > Therefore, it probably can even be argued (by deduction as I do not have a degree in law) that particularly in the cross-jurisdictional scenario, Ofcom’s whining about the non-compliance of a website with UK law is null and void. I see absolutely no argument for this. The UKs regulations here that Ofcom is the enforcement agency for are explicitly extra-territorial in nature. That doesn't mean that Ofcom can successfully get other countries to help them enforce their laws (or can invade other countries to enforce them themselves) but they clearly have the power to act within the UK to enforce their laws against people in other jurisdictions. For instance to levy fines that will be on the books should those people come to the UK in the future.
        inkyoto 11mo ago
        I wonder whether the regulatory / civil vs criminal distinction plays a role here. It is plausible to assume that, at any given time, a random person from the juridisction A is in breach of compliance of jurisdiction B – knowingly or unknowingly to them. Jurisdiction B granting itself extra-territorial regulatory / civil (not criminal) enforcement powers puts the nationals of the entire jurisdiction A into non-compliance and subject to fines or arrests at the cross-border point. It is, of course, perfectly legally possible, yet surreal. Curiously, what the UK is attempting in this instance closely mirrors the approach adopted by the CCP with the National Security Law in Hong Kong, wherein they asserted their own authority to indict any individual, of any nationality, residing in any jurisdiction, for alleged breaches of the Hong Kong NSL. Whilst it is abundantly clear that the primary focus is Hong Kong pro-democracy activists holding multiple citizenships, they have also stated – with calculated lack of emphasis – that non-Hong Kong persons may likewise be targeted.
- inemesitaffia 11mo ago
  Servers and customers were in USA
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
dmix 11mo ago
> Prompt and voluntary cooperation with law enforcement on child safety issues, including UK law enforcement, is what really matters for children’s safety online. That work happens quietly and non-publicly with officials who are tasked with performing it, namely, the police. My client will not be working with you on that important work because your agency is a censorship agency, not a law enforcement agency. Ofcom lacks the competence and the jurisdiction to do the work that actually matters in this space. Well said
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
hexbin010 11mo ago
Seems like a lot of needless drama. What real legal threat did they pose that warranted a federal suit in the US against Ofcom? Just ignore Ofcom?
- gpm 11mo ago
  More than that if his clients ever do end up in the UK for whatever reason his letters sent on their behalf to the UK government are going to be prime evidence that the violation of the law was wilful. Meanwhile if his clients remain beyond the UKs reach sending these letters achieves nothing of value. There's no world where this response convinces Ofcom to stop doing their job at enforcing (to the best of their ability) the UKs laws. He is just hurting his own clients by sending letters back to them.
  - binary132 11mo ago
    I think it’s great that someone is loudly and publicly saying no to them.
    - gpm 11mo ago
      I mean I don't particularly agree but I can understand the sentiment. That's not what I'm saying just harms his clients though. There's obvious (almost entirely domestic, probably counter productive as to UK politics) lobbying value in that. It's the part where he sends confessions back to the UK regulators privately that just harms his clients.
      - d1sxeyes 11mo ago
        The high-profile, public, Arkell vs. Pressdram type response increases public awareness. Without that, he’s just a guy with a blog, and can’t effect any real change. Whether it harms or benefits his clients or not is likely a question of politics. If these responses drum up enough attention that his GRANITE act gets passed, that’s arguably a better outcome for each client jointly and severally than just ignoring the letters.
    - 11mo ago
FridayoLeary 11mo ago
This whole bill is about increasing government control. Now the civil servants get to geoblock our internet. Something they've been desperate to do. I feel it's part of a wider pattern along with the police deciding recently that the law allows them to police social media like the stasi. Not a new law, just a creative interpretation of one that has been around for a while. Then you have that horrible idea with mandatory digital id. I'm not sure what exactly is going on because we are still a democracy. I think it's just a lot of people living in an ivory tower. It's not about child safety at all. If anything our government has shown time and again that that is simply not a priority for them.
- squidbeak 11mo ago
  > Then you have that horrible idea with mandatory digital id. As the plan stands, the only case where it would be mandatory is for employment. The extension to right to rent is under consultation. I strongly recommend reading more on the Digital ID framework - it isn't as the press and influencers have led most people imagine. For instance there isn't a single id, there's no central database and government's role is only as a passive reference and legislator. I was opposed to the idea when I first heard about it, but won over by its sensible structure, which will actually strengthen citizens. https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/26/sharing-the-final-gamma-0-4-trust-framework-and-updated-supplementary-codes/ https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/26/shari... https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/ https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/
dmitrygr 11mo ago
If you needed to ask the permission of every apparatchik in the world before you said anything online, you wouldn't even be allowed to say "no comment". Glad someone is fighting this and doing so publicly. And the GRANITE act looks interesting: https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/18/the-granite-act-how-congress-can-strike-back-against-foreign-censors/ https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/18/the-granite-act-how-cong...
tguvot 11mo ago
ofcom is "fun". been working on implementation UK Telecommunications Security Code of Practice that been managed by ofcom. There are some very undefined controls with rather vague examples (that say "for example" and "not exhaustive list"). I tried to get from them clarification about how it should be applied, as controls/examples not clear. they wrote me back that I should simply look at example as they explain everything
quantummagic 11mo ago
The U.K. has descended into madness. The legalities of this don't even really matter, it's disappointing that there is any support for this sort of thing in the first place.
- immibis 11mo ago
  This is basically how the UK always was. You also can't legally carry knives in public unless you're moving house or coming home from the knife store.
  - lambdaone 11mo ago
    ...or taking them to somewhere where you are legitimately going to use them for a legal purpose, or taking them back from there, or, indeed, doing anything else with them for which there is a legal justification. Provided the knife is securely packaged (in a toolbox, for example) and not available for use as a weapon, it's all good. Note that all this refers to big knives, not pocket knives with short blades, which are still completely legal to carry on you without needing any justification. Seems very reasonable to me. As a result, contrary to the myths, and in spite of guns not being available for attacks, we actually have a fairly low rate of actual knife murder; slightly less than that of the US, I believe.
jimnotgym 11mo ago
> UK’s censorship agency, Ofcom I think that is a bit of a stretch. Ofcom is the telecommunications regulator. They are responsible for censorship, but to be a censorship agency it would have to be your primary role. Starting a blog like this, suggests everything below is going to be a bit OTT. Instead of censorship we have propaganda. Ofcom license amateur radio, but spend no time censoring it that I know of. Last week they fined Virgin media for making a hash of converting vulnerable people from analogue to digital phone lines, without regards to their telehealth monitoring systems. That sort of mundane thing is Ofcoms raison d'etre
- monsecchris 11mo ago
  The purpose of an entity is what it does, not what its mission statement says it should be doing.
  - squidbeak 11mo ago
    Nice soundbite, but no, the purpose of (for instance) the Royal Mail isn't to funnel postmasters to jail.
    - phendrenad2 11mo ago
      You're missing the point. Is it better to call a thing by what it does, or what it (giving the benefit of the doubt here) claims to do?
      - jimnotgym 11mo ago
        Most of what it does is oodles of boring regulation of things like radio spectrums . So yes, it is a telecommunication regulator.
        phendrenad2 11mo ago
        That brings up another question: Is it better to call things by what they primarily do, or what they do that's relevant to the discussion? If I put sandbags in front of my house to stop a flood, I don't call it a "beach".
GaryBluto 11mo ago
Ofcom is effectively humiliating the United Kingdom (further) to the world by doing this. There's nothing more pathetic that demanding somebody do something under threat and them just shrugging it off.
- badgersnake 11mo ago
  They’re doing what the previous government, who brought in this daft law, and the current government, who supported it legally require them to do. They know it’s stupid, but it’s not Ofcom, it’s the politicians.
  - jcsager 11mo ago
    Spot on. The letter is a prime example of a boilerplate process that Ofcom have developed to meet the requirements of the law as it currently stands. By now I expect they have no illusions about 4Chan's likelihood of complying. I wonder how long they will carry on sending similar letters and giving Preston Byrne an opportunity to have another laugh.
  - aydyn 11mo ago
    Are you sure about that? There must be many targets within the UK where their threats have teeth. Why go after an American business instead of first acting within the UK?
chatmasta 11mo ago
Calling these letters toothless is missing the point. Ofcom doesn’t expect 4chan to comply. They are creating a paper trail to justify the next step of forcing UK ISPs to block the content at a network level.

90 points by parliament32 11mo ago

This reminds me of the Kim Dotcom saga where US attorneys accused Mega of copyright infringement when he was living in New Zealand and his company, Mega, was based in Hong Kong. Dotcom had never stepped foot in the US but somehow that was enough grounds to extradite him and force him to comply with local laws. There are plenty of examples of judicial overreach in all parts of the world. The US is no exception.

slillibri 11mo ago
Hong Kong and New Zealand are Berne Convention countries so that would be the grounds for extradition. I don’t remember other countries signing up to enforce Ofcom’s laws.
- gpm 11mo ago
  I don't see any evidence Ofcom is currently asking anyone else to enforce their laws. As far as I can they're currently simply taking the steps they can themselves to enforce their laws - i.e. as far as people in the US go sending letters. Letters that put them in a position to levy fines and maybe arrest people in the future should they have the opportunity to, for example if the relevant people travel or have assets in the UK in the future. Or if at some point in the future some country does sign up to enforce Ofcom's laws here and relevant people travel to that country. The US is presumably barred (short of a constitutional amendment) from making such an agreement under the first amendment, but other countries are likely not barred. Just because a government doesn't currently have the power to arrest you doesn't mean they can't internally begin processes to arrest you if/when they get that ability, or that they can't communicate to you that they are doing that. In fact governments of all sorts (including the US) do exactly that against people they can't arrest all the time.
  - inkyoto 11mo ago
    > I don't see any evidence Ofcom is currently asking anyone else to enforce their laws. As far as I can they're currently simply taking the steps they can themselves to enforce their laws - i.e. as far as people in the US go sending letters. It is even more nuanced than that: whilst Ofcom absolutely has legal enforcement powers under UK law – but they are regulatory / civil powers, not criminal powers like the police. Therefore, it probably can even be argued (by deduction as I do not have a degree in law) that particularly in the cross-jurisdictional scenario, Ofcom’s whining about the non-compliance of a website with UK law is null and void.
    - gpm 11mo ago
      > Therefore, it probably can even be argued (by deduction as I do not have a degree in law) that particularly in the cross-jurisdictional scenario, Ofcom’s whining about the non-compliance of a website with UK law is null and void. I see absolutely no argument for this. The UKs regulations here that Ofcom is the enforcement agency for are explicitly extra-territorial in nature. That doesn't mean that Ofcom can successfully get other countries to help them enforce their laws (or can invade other countries to enforce them themselves) but they clearly have the power to act within the UK to enforce their laws against people in other jurisdictions. For instance to levy fines that will be on the books should those people come to the UK in the future.
      - inkyoto 11mo ago
        I wonder whether the regulatory / civil vs criminal distinction plays a role here. It is plausible to assume that, at any given time, a random person from the juridisction A is in breach of compliance of jurisdiction B – knowingly or unknowingly to them. Jurisdiction B granting itself extra-territorial regulatory / civil (not criminal) enforcement powers puts the nationals of the entire jurisdiction A into non-compliance and subject to fines or arrests at the cross-border point. It is, of course, perfectly legally possible, yet surreal. Curiously, what the UK is attempting in this instance closely mirrors the approach adopted by the CCP with the National Security Law in Hong Kong, wherein they asserted their own authority to indict any individual, of any nationality, residing in any jurisdiction, for alleged breaches of the Hong Kong NSL. Whilst it is abundantly clear that the primary focus is Hong Kong pro-democracy activists holding multiple citizenships, they have also stated – with calculated lack of emphasis – that non-Hong Kong persons may likewise be targeted.
inemesitaffia 11mo ago
Servers and customers were in USA

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

dmix 11mo ago

> Prompt and voluntary cooperation with law enforcement on child safety issues, including UK law enforcement, is what really matters for children’s safety online. That work happens quietly and non-publicly with officials who are tasked with performing it, namely, the police. My client will not be working with you on that important work because your agency is a censorship agency, not a law enforcement agency. Ofcom lacks the competence and the jurisdiction to do the work that actually matters in this space. Well said

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

hexbin010 11mo ago

Seems like a lot of needless drama. What real legal threat did they pose that warranted a federal suit in the US against Ofcom? Just ignore Ofcom?

gpm 11mo ago
More than that if his clients ever do end up in the UK for whatever reason his letters sent on their behalf to the UK government are going to be prime evidence that the violation of the law was wilful. Meanwhile if his clients remain beyond the UKs reach sending these letters achieves nothing of value. There's no world where this response convinces Ofcom to stop doing their job at enforcing (to the best of their ability) the UKs laws. He is just hurting his own clients by sending letters back to them.
- binary132 11mo ago
  I think it’s great that someone is loudly and publicly saying no to them.
  - gpm 11mo ago
    I mean I don't particularly agree but I can understand the sentiment. That's not what I'm saying just harms his clients though. There's obvious (almost entirely domestic, probably counter productive as to UK politics) lobbying value in that. It's the part where he sends confessions back to the UK regulators privately that just harms his clients.
    - d1sxeyes 11mo ago
      The high-profile, public, Arkell vs. Pressdram type response increases public awareness. Without that, he’s just a guy with a blog, and can’t effect any real change. Whether it harms or benefits his clients or not is likely a question of politics. If these responses drum up enough attention that his GRANITE act gets passed, that’s arguably a better outcome for each client jointly and severally than just ignoring the letters.
  - 11mo ago

FridayoLeary 11mo ago

This whole bill is about increasing government control. Now the civil servants get to geoblock our internet. Something they've been desperate to do. I feel it's part of a wider pattern along with the police deciding recently that the law allows them to police social media like the stasi. Not a new law, just a creative interpretation of one that has been around for a while. Then you have that horrible idea with mandatory digital id. I'm not sure what exactly is going on because we are still a democracy. I think it's just a lot of people living in an ivory tower. It's not about child safety at all. If anything our government has shown time and again that that is simply not a priority for them.

squidbeak 11mo ago
> Then you have that horrible idea with mandatory digital id. As the plan stands, the only case where it would be mandatory is for employment. The extension to right to rent is under consultation. I strongly recommend reading more on the Digital ID framework - it isn't as the press and influencers have led most people imagine. For instance there isn't a single id, there's no central database and government's role is only as a passive reference and legislator. I was opposed to the idea when I first heard about it, but won over by its sensible structure, which will actually strengthen citizens. https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/26/sharing-the-final-gamma-0-4-trust-framework-and-updated-supplementary-codes/ https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/26/shari... https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/ https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/

dmitrygr 11mo ago

If you needed to ask the permission of every apparatchik in the world before you said anything online, you wouldn't even be allowed to say "no comment". Glad someone is fighting this and doing so publicly. And the GRANITE act looks interesting: https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/18/the-granite-act-how-congress-can-strike-back-against-foreign-censors/ https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/18/the-granite-act-how-cong...

tguvot 11mo ago

ofcom is "fun". been working on implementation UK Telecommunications Security Code of Practice that been managed by ofcom. There are some very undefined controls with rather vague examples (that say "for example" and "not exhaustive list"). I tried to get from them clarification about how it should be applied, as controls/examples not clear. they wrote me back that I should simply look at example as they explain everything

quantummagic 11mo ago

The U.K. has descended into madness. The legalities of this don't even really matter, it's disappointing that there is any support for this sort of thing in the first place.

immibis 11mo ago
This is basically how the UK always was. You also can't legally carry knives in public unless you're moving house or coming home from the knife store.
- lambdaone 11mo ago
  ...or taking them to somewhere where you are legitimately going to use them for a legal purpose, or taking them back from there, or, indeed, doing anything else with them for which there is a legal justification. Provided the knife is securely packaged (in a toolbox, for example) and not available for use as a weapon, it's all good. Note that all this refers to big knives, not pocket knives with short blades, which are still completely legal to carry on you without needing any justification. Seems very reasonable to me. As a result, contrary to the myths, and in spite of guns not being available for attacks, we actually have a fairly low rate of actual knife murder; slightly less than that of the US, I believe.

jimnotgym 11mo ago

> UK’s censorship agency, Ofcom I think that is a bit of a stretch. Ofcom is the telecommunications regulator. They are responsible for censorship, but to be a censorship agency it would have to be your primary role. Starting a blog like this, suggests everything below is going to be a bit OTT. Instead of censorship we have propaganda. Ofcom license amateur radio, but spend no time censoring it that I know of. Last week they fined Virgin media for making a hash of converting vulnerable people from analogue to digital phone lines, without regards to their telehealth monitoring systems. That sort of mundane thing is Ofcoms raison d'etre

monsecchris 11mo ago
The purpose of an entity is what it does, not what its mission statement says it should be doing.
- squidbeak 11mo ago
  Nice soundbite, but no, the purpose of (for instance) the Royal Mail isn't to funnel postmasters to jail.
  - phendrenad2 11mo ago
    You're missing the point. Is it better to call a thing by what it does, or what it (giving the benefit of the doubt here) claims to do?
    - jimnotgym 11mo ago
      Most of what it does is oodles of boring regulation of things like radio spectrums . So yes, it is a telecommunication regulator.
      - phendrenad2 11mo ago
        That brings up another question: Is it better to call things by what they primarily do, or what they do that's relevant to the discussion? If I put sandbags in front of my house to stop a flood, I don't call it a "beach".

GaryBluto 11mo ago

Ofcom is effectively humiliating the United Kingdom (further) to the world by doing this. There's nothing more pathetic that demanding somebody do something under threat and them just shrugging it off.

badgersnake 11mo ago
They’re doing what the previous government, who brought in this daft law, and the current government, who supported it legally require them to do. They know it’s stupid, but it’s not Ofcom, it’s the politicians.
- jcsager 11mo ago
  Spot on. The letter is a prime example of a boilerplate process that Ofcom have developed to meet the requirements of the law as it currently stands. By now I expect they have no illusions about 4Chan's likelihood of complying. I wonder how long they will carry on sending similar letters and giving Preston Byrne an opportunity to have another laugh.
- aydyn 11mo ago
  Are you sure about that? There must be many targets within the UK where their threats have teeth. Why go after an American business instead of first acting within the UK?

chatmasta 11mo ago

Calling these letters toothless is missing the point. Ofcom doesn’t expect 4chan to comply. They are creating a paper trail to justify the next step of forcing UK ISPs to block the content at a network level.