17 ms·

4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches

• chuckadams 7mo ago
  Amateurs. Russia has fined Google more than the GDP of the entire planet. Odds of collecting are about the same.
  • chrisjj 7mo ago
    Odds of collecting some 4chan execs travelling abroad are a lot higher, though
    • vorpalhex 7mo ago
      4chan's lawyer, who has been engaging with this well since the beginning, has clearly advised his clients, who have no intent of ever going to the UK, to not go there. In addition, Ofcom does not have the ability to collect them through the EU itself. They must go to the UK. It already sounds like Ofcom is likely to lose lawsuits about this, as they do not have jurisdiction in the U.S., where 4chan is hosted.
      • petcat 7mo ago
        > Ofcom is likely to lose lawsuits about this, as they do not have jurisdiction in the U.S. How would Ofcom even have a lawsuit to lose? Are they going to file it in the US? Of course not, USA courts will tell them to pound sand. They'll just advise the UK government to block 4chan nationwide. Which is really what they want to do anyway.
        • freddydumont 7mo ago
          Ofcom doesn’t really wanna block websites though, they want websites to either comply or block themselves, both of which legitimizing Ofcom’s extraterritorial enforcement.
    • LAC-Tech 7mo ago
      I do not think 4chan has executives.
      • chrisjj 7mo ago
        I think the fact 4chan instructed a lawyer shows it does.
        • LAC-Tech 7mo ago
          The lawyer is taking the case pro-bono. I am not sure why you think running a website where people are free to say awful things about powerful people would be profitable.
          • chrisjj 7mo ago
            > The lawyer is taking the case pro-bono. What difference does that make? > I am not sure why you think running a website where people are free to say awful things about powerful people would be profitable. I didn't say anything about them being profitable. And again, what different would that make?
      • Bender 7mo ago
        CIA absolutely have executive equivalents.
• chrisjj 7mo ago
  a lawyer representing the company - which has previously said it won't pay such fines - has responded to the demand with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster.
• robthebrew 7mo ago
  4chan is still a thing? I thought it died long ago. Perhaps I grew up.
  • nslsm 7mo ago
    It is, it didn’t, and you didn’t.
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • miladyincontrol 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • Bender 7mo ago
    4chan is still a thing? I thought it died long ago. Perhaps I grew up. It is still there. There is a GPT that keeps it looking active and people that reply to it daily. For about 9 days after their most recent big hack it was nice and quiet. It would be a ghost town if not for the GPT using a 4chan pass and seychelles proxies. The /pol/ board is probably the most active with real humans trying to shock and awe people with fake racism and other edge-lord behavior. The real racist are on other sites. I would invite them here to prove what that really looks like but they would be ultra-shadow-banned instantly.
• rconti 7mo ago
  > "Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," she said. So the UK plans to fine Parisian bars that serve alcohol to British under-18s in France on holiday?
  • ceejayoz 7mo ago
    This is more like the UK fining Parisian bars that courier alcohol to under-18s in the UK.
    • shaky-carrousel 7mo ago
      Which is equally absurd.
      • OJFord 7mo ago
        No it isn't? Real example is Amazon, a US company that sells alcohol in the UK, and is required to check age on order & delivery.
        • qup 7mo ago
          Amazon is an international corporation with UK-incorporated entities.
          • OJFord 7mo ago
            That's true but not relevant to the spirit of the point.
            • ronsor 7mo ago
              It is relevant. There's a material difference between shipping material overseas and shipping it (and handling it) within the destination country. If someone mails $ProhibitedItem at a USPS to the UK, then it's the job of local UK police and/or customs to reject the parcel if it is prohibited. It's the UK's problem, de facto if not de jure, because the sender is out of reach. If someone with a UK subsidiary and local processing center mails $ProhibitedItem to their center and delivers it to someone in the UK, then that's more than the UK's problem.
• OsrsNeedsf2P 7mo ago
  4chan's lawyer's response: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko
  • petcat 7mo ago
    And now we'll watch the UK take the logical next step which is for the government to mandate that all ISPs in the country block 4chan. CCP "Great Firewall" style.
    • tokyobreakfast 7mo ago
      Most Brits already have a VPN to beat off so the effect will be negligible.
      • jjice 7mo ago
        "Most" is probably not accurate. I can't imagine the average middle aged individual in the UK has a VPN they use regularly. I'd be pleasantly surprised if that was the case.
        • TheOtherHobbes 7mo ago
          The average middle aged individual probably doesn't read 4chan. VPN take up in the UK is around 20-25%
        • deleted 7mo ago
          [deleted]
      • petcat 7mo ago
        And then they'll make VPNs illegal
        • itintheory 7mo ago
• bpodgursky 7mo ago
  It does seem like if the UK wants to do content filtration (blocking noncompliant websites) they will need to own up to it and set up a China-style firewall, rather than hoping they can badger the service providers into doing it for them.
  • Retr0id 7mo ago
    Yes, this is part of the consent manufacturing process.
  • kleene_op 7mo ago
    That's the plan. But if they do it right away people will revolt.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • windowliker 7mo ago
    It already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
  • ilovecake1984 7mo ago
    That’s the idea. This is step one.
• vasco 7mo ago
  People used to tell kids to not go to a shady part of town while they spent their afternoons outside unsupervised. Can parents not tell kids to not go to certain websites? We still went to the shady part of town and the kids will still go to 4chan but at least we don't need to give away freedoms. Such erosion of freedom for the common person because parents can't have an awkward conversation is irritating.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
    Do you have children?
    • oarsinsync 7mo ago
      Or this should be done at point of sale, like we do with all controlled substances. We don't sell bottles containing alcohol and then expect to filter the alcohol out if the child wants to drink from it. We have two different bottles: alcoholic bottles and non-alcoholic bottles. If you are a child, you cannot purchase the former. Stop selling unrestricted computing devices to children. Require a person to be 18+ to purchase an unrestricted internet device. Make it clear that unrestricted internet access, like alcohol and nicotine (and the list goes on) is harmful to children. That resolves 90% of the problem. And lets be fair, the problem isn't the children. Children want what all their peers have. The problem isn't their peers. The problem is the parents. Give the spineless parents a simpler way to say no to their children, and the overall problem goes away.
    • mapotofu 7mo ago
      I do. I also grew up on 4chan because I didn’t have an involved parent, and I lived in the suburbs where finding friends to just “go outside and play” wasn’t an option. Consuming that content was genuinely hurtful and probably forever altered my psyche. I have the means and knowledge, in technical skill and life experience, to know how these things work, and protect my kids from that. Most people don’t.
      • huflungdung 7mo ago
        Haven’t you considered that the fact you were exposed to these things made you who you are today am able to say that with conviction. If you had been shielded from the reality on human extremism you would not.
• erelong 7mo ago
  "As they should"
• dijit 7mo ago
  The response from Ofcom doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you are to sell a toy in the UK you must be a British company. (and must pay VAT and comply with British safety standards). If a consumer buys from overseas and imports a product then they do not have British consumer protections. Which is why so much aliexpress electrical stuff is dangerous (expecially USB chargers) yet it continues to be legally imported. Just, no british retailer would be allowed to carry it without getting a fine.
  • tokyobreakfast 7mo ago
    The US CBP routinely intercepts "dangerous" products. I assume the Brits have the same. It's a wonder why AliExpress flies under the radar. I assume it's impossible to keep up with it all. The UK's comically over-engineered electrics are no match for some of these plug-in-and-die sketchy USB chargers from the Far East. DiodesGoneWild on YouTube does teardowns of many of these incredibly poorly constructed deathtraps.
    • refulgentis 7mo ago
      Commenting on Europe has gotten really lax the last year or so. People kinda will just say whatever pops into their head and it’s some drive-by claim that they haven’t thought about for a second past it popping into their head, presumably because it’s become normalized. (i.e. “but everyone knows Europe goes too far”) Sometimes it self resolves - as you contributed here, yes, countries limit and interfere and fine other countries businesses, all the time! I don’t know what yours means though. What electrics are made in the UK? How are they over engineered?
      • tokyobreakfast 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        • cookiengineer 7mo ago
          > Are you having a mini-stroke? This comment is comically pointless.
• josefritzishere 7mo ago
  The unpaywalled version on AOL https://www.aol.com/articles/us-messageboard-4chan-mocks-520-115418836.html https://www.aol.com/articles/us-messageboard-4chan-mocks-520...
• john_strinlai 7mo ago
  >However, a lawyer representing the company - which has previously said it won't pay such fines - has responded to the demand with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster. >The latest image is not the first picture of a hamster lawyers for 4chan have sent in reply to Ofcom amazing. same energy as the pirate bay telling dreamworks to sodomize themselves. i cant help but laugh at the absurdness of it.
  • aydyn 7mo ago
    Unlike TPB founders who were convicted in 2009 because copyright infringement also violates swedish law, the 4chan lawyers are correct that they are breaking no U.S. law. 1A provides broad protections.
  • uyzstvqs 7mo ago
    From last year: > Messages sent to 4chan's press email went unreturned. One of the two dozen or so alleged moderators purportedly exposed in the hack wrote back using their 4chan email address to say that the site had released a "video statement." The user then pointed Reuters to an unrelated, explicit four-minute video montage. A request for further information was followed by a link to a different video with similar content. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/notorious-internet-messageboard-4chan-has-been-hacked-posts-claim-2025-04-15/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/notorious-i...
    • fluoridation 7mo ago
      I really thought it was going to say that they sent them to Never Gonna Give You Up, but a shock video is about as funny.
  • veunes 7mo ago
    It's funny on the surface, but it also kind of highlights how broken the interaction is
• gorgoiler 7mo ago
  Meanwhile Google.com shows all manner of depravity if you click “safe search: off”. I realize there’s a carve out in the legislation for search engines but if the goal is to stop little Timmy finding pictures of an X being Yd up the Z then it is a resolute failure. The only thing that works with children is transparency and accountability, be that the school firewall or a ban on screen use in secret. ”screens where I can see ‘em!”
• internet2000 7mo ago
  Let kids go to 4chan. I frequented it and turned out fine.
  • throwpoaster 7mo ago
    The problem is you're getting downvoted by the people who didn't.
    • akramachamarei 7mo ago
      Bold to assume downvoters vote on first-hand knowledge.
  • patates 7mo ago
    I used to hang out there too. However, describing me as 'fine' would require a lengthy debate over definitions.
  • sayYayToLife 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • abcde666777 7mo ago
    Still do to be honest. Always a good place for a little catharsis.
    • fghj888999 7mo ago
      I honestly only go there for the same reason and directly after big news. DLSS5's announcement was the first time I went in nearly a year. I wanted to find trolls and I did, and the whole flamewar was the best digital popcorn I had in months.
  • OhioMan2943 7mo ago
    /wsg/ still has some of the best videos on the internet
  • halapro 7mo ago
• patates 7mo ago
  It would be marvelous if they used a drawing of a spider. https://27bslash6.com/overdue.html https://27bslash6.com/overdue.html
• wnevets 7mo ago
  You mean the message board that collab-ed with Epstein? Delete them from the internet.
  • 9864247888754 7mo ago
    [dead]
    • wnevets 7mo ago
      K
  • hunterpayne 7mo ago
    You realize that the Epsteins used Reddit way more than 4chan right? Maxwell was one of the first users to 1m karma.
    • wnevets 7mo ago
      and then he worked with reddit to create a special subreddit with content like you would find in /pol/?
• ecshafer 7mo ago
  UK fining an American company for this is absurd. 4Chan isn't breaking any laws. You can make it illegal for your own citizens but you can't regulate a foreign business. UK citizens should fight for the right to free speech though.
  • cyberclimb 7mo ago
    How about the EU imposing GDPR restrictions on non-eu companies?
    • Valodim 7mo ago
      Depends on whether those businesses want to do business with the EU
    • RadiozRadioz 7mo ago
      I think that's different because I have a positive personal opinion of the GDPR and a negative personal opinion about what the UK is doing. Therefore the GDPR is good and this is bad. It's really quite objective.
      • phendrenad2 7mo ago
        You can hold a mirror up to HN, but you can't make them look.
      • Radle 7mo ago
        Or these are oranges and apples, and your perspective is simply blurred because you are starting a fight whenever someone wants you to put up your glasses. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      • icehawk 7mo ago
        I may have a positive personal opinion of the GDPR, but I ignore all GDPR requests for the website I have that you can just visit, because I don't want to be seen as doing business that makes me subject to GDPR
    • ceayo 7mo ago
• DroneBetter 7mo ago
  > Last month Pornhub restricted access to its website in the UK, blaming the introduction of stricter age checks, and said its traffic had fallen by 77%. assumedly the rate of consumption hasn't dramatically changed, so the OSA's immediate result has been either the decentralisation of porn providers (towards those small enough to dodge the law for now and be less exacting) or the mass adoption of proxies; I assume the former is the path of least resistance this is notably the opposite of the feared outcome (which I suspect may be closer to the long-term effect) that the bar to meet the requirements would be so high (possibly involving hiring a lawyer) that smaller social/porn sites get regulated out of existence (see ie. https://lobste.rs/s/ukosa1/uk_users_lobsters_needs_your_help_with https://lobste.rs/s/ukosa1/uk_users_lobsters_needs_your_help...)
  • epolanski 7mo ago
    I'm Italian and can confirm that half of the major porn websites require age checks.
  • aincodle 7mo ago
    Probably a significant part of this is people experiencing friction in trying to access this, realising that they don't actually need to consume pornography, and having this break the cycle of compulsion. Which is the most positive outcome really.
  • windowliker 7mo ago
    Sadly what has actually happened is that many niche interest discussion forums have shut their doors due to fears of regulatory repercussion and fines.
• guelo 7mo ago
  There's always people that say it's the parents responsibility to monitor their kids. But as a parent, you either give your kids full access to the internet or nothing. The fault lies with the OS companies Google, Microsoft, Apple. They do a terrible job with parental controls. They make it very hard to setup, they're confusing and hard to use plus they barely work. I think they just do it as a checkbox for marketing or regulatory purposes. That's where I'd like to see regulation.
  • rstat1 7mo ago
    OS makers should not be in the business of enforcing censorship. If you want to shield your children from the "horrors" of the internet either use proper parental control software, or don't allow access at all like you said until your kids are mature to understand what's going on The onus is on the parent to the be parent. Not the tech industry, and especially not the government.
    • guelo 7mo ago
      Who are you to decide what should or should not be? "proper parental control software" doesn't exist for a lot of the platforms.
    • rocqua 7mo ago
      If the solution is parental control software, that also puts onus on operating systems to present the means for such software to work properly. This does not mean the OS should censor, it might mean the OS offers a censorship interface. At least we seem to agree the solution lies with better tools for parents.
  • Am4TIfIsER0ppos 7mo ago
    The answer is a computer the child must sit down and use in front of the family. Steve Jobs ruined the world with the invention of the iPhone, and whoever else is responsible for the more generic smartphone. Now parents use one to quieten their children and governments use it to surveil us all.
  • epolanski 7mo ago
• doublerabbit 7mo ago
  £450k? - Quick, we must show we've done something. > or requiring Internet Service Providers to block a site in the UK. Ah, that's what they want.
  • ceayo 7mo ago
    They probably don't even expect 4chan to pay up - they just want them gone.
  • rjh29 7mo ago
    Yeah. Nobody thinks they will pay the fine, it just shows non compliance.
• cubefox 7mo ago
  This part is somewhat surprising to me: > Data shows that nearly 80% of the top 100 pornography sites in the UK now have age checks in place. This means that on average, every day, over 7 million visitors from the UK are accessing pornography services that have deployed age assurance. I would have expected that most people would switch to other pornography sites that don't have age checks rather than doing an age check. But apparently that isn't the case. (Or their data is misleading. People in the UK who are using VPNs presumably can't be easily identified as British.)
  • Scaled 7mo ago
    Yeah, that is ABSOLUTELY a lie. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to include links as a new user but Pornbiz posted an article showing AV lost them 90% of traffic. There's a BBC article where researchers found AV compliant sites were decimated on their top traffic ranking on Similarweb. And I working in the industry saw our traffic drop by 99.9% during our AV test. Users don't use VPN, they certainly don't upload ID... they just go to noncompliant sites. Don't believe UK government's gaslighting.
  • rjh29 7mo ago
    The first part is true but the second sentence seems dubious to me. Did they compute that from the previous visitor numbers or something?
  • epolanski 7mo ago
    In Italy porn websites also require age verification now, lately everybody is complying.
• JamesTRexx 7mo ago
  4chan doesn't need age checks, everyone knows there are only five year olds on it. :-p
  • kps 7mo ago
    Those were FBI agents. Expect a knock on your door any time now.
  • subscribed 7mo ago
    Twenty five years old :-p
  • bauruine 7mo ago
    The Internet: Where the men are men, the women are men and the children are FBI agents.
• doublediamond21 7mo ago
  [dead]
• dmitrygr 7mo ago
  4chan fighting for us all! Bravo.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• gadders 7mo ago
  If it wasn't for 4Chan, we might never have solved the Haruhi problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation#Lower_bounds,_or_the_Haruhi_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation#Lower_bounds,... I used to go on a curated version of 4Chan via Telegram. Yes there is a lot of racism (although it flies in every direction, between every ethnicity you could imagine) but there is also (due to the anonymous nature) some genuinely interesting discussions. I remember one thread about aircraft carriers being of no use being debated by US and UK submarine officers. There are also some genuinely funny bits. There was a guy in Greece who had found out that as long as he never graduated, he could live a basic life for free at university. His nickname was Dormogenes.
  • john_strinlai 7mo ago
    there is a great clickhole headline that your comment reminds me of "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point" 4chan has produced some hilarious/interesting stuff, and they have also driven people to suicide. i suppose it is up to everyone individually to make the value judgement there.
    • nvme0n1p1 7mo ago
      Replace "4chan" with "humanity in general" and your statement still holds true.
      • john_strinlai 7mo ago
        sure, yeah, the original quote was about a person instead of a website, so that makes sense.
      • BobaFloutist 7mo ago
        I mean that's pretty vacuously true, since (the community of) "4chan" is a subset of (the total population of) "humanity in general," but it's a stronger and more interesting claim to make about the subculture in question. If anything, the person you were replying to was intentionally describing how 4chan is less dissimilar to humanity in general than its typical portrayal, so responding with a dismissal that that makes them just the same as everyone else is really just affirming their point.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• AJRF 7mo ago
  This is all just theatre to justify a ban right?
  • doublerabbit 7mo ago
    Yep. Just like most of my tax money, it's going to some clown-show just so they can get permission to ban a website where 69% of internet users how to skate through with use of a VPN. 4chan creates another TLD on another IP, just like TPB and the whole show starts again. Instead of, why don't we. The UK government.
• VladVladikoff 7mo ago
  The letter sent by the lawyer in response: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HDwtXYaWAAA-u0l?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HDwtXYaWAAA-u0l?format=jpg&name=...
  • userbinator 7mo ago
    It's not often that I'll use this phrase, but that is absolutely based. 4chan chose the perfect lawyer to represent them.
  • cashbreaker 7mo ago
    that is some true masterpiece of a letter
• kimixa 7mo ago
  People here seem to be thinking this a UK/Europe-specific phenomenon, but there's plenty of examples of the US "seizing" sites that were never hosted in the USA either, and even put pressure on countries to extradite people involved even if they never broke any laws in the country they're living in. One I remember was a site hosting streams of the 2022 football world cup. Or a number of Iranian-affiliated news sites just last year. Or offshore gambling websites in 2021. People going "Those Crazy Brits! Thank God That'll Never Happen Here!" seem pretty ill-informed.
  • petcat 7mo ago
    USA doesn't block websites. The FBI will seize domains after some judicial review and a court order. That's about it.
    • aaomidi 7mo ago
      And you can use cctlds to bypass this too
      • ronsor 7mo ago
        Yes. Hollywood is mad, but piracy sites are still up and unblocked. Book publishers are mad, but Anna's Archive persists on CCTLDs. The US by and large doesn't censor websites even if the content is illegal in the US. They'll get a warrant and seize servers or domains if it's in the country, or maybe poke international law enforcement for cooperation, but it doesn't really extend beyond that.
        • NicuCalcea 7mo ago
          > It is further ordered that all ISPs (including without limitation those set forth in Exhibit B hereto) and any other ISPs providing services in the United States shall block access to the Website at any domain address known today (including but not limited to those set forth in Exhibit A hereto) or to be used in the future by the Defendants (“Newly Detected Websites”) by any technological means available on the ISPs’ systems. The domain addresses and any Newly Detected Websites shall be channeled in such a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs’ DNS servers to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs (the “Landing Page”). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/judge-rules-every-isp-in-us-must-block-pirate-sites-run-by-mysterious-defendants/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/judge-rules-ever...
• mrtksn 7mo ago
  Europeans are following the wrong path on regulating the internet. Instead of calling it internet safety and annoy people, they should just make those services and the people running them liable for the damages. The same goes for the freedom of speech. Europeans should make it legal guarantee instead of trying to build walls around speech. So when X or 4Chan etc deletes a post, it may lead to freedom of speech fines if deletion wasn't justified. Tha same for the algorithm, if a post that doesn't break the rules is discriminated by the algorithm, a hefty fine should apply. Suddenly we will have companies that keep their business clean and no claim for moral high ground.
  • LaurensBER 7mo ago
    I agree but you have to understand that a lot of European (leaders) still have WW2 in the back of their head. For them there're far worse things than giving up some freedoms. One can agree or disagree with this but Europe's actions are far more understandable if you see where they're coming from. From what it's worth, the younger generation doesn't seem to see this the same way so whatever censure Europe introduces today will most likely be temporary.
    • mrtksn 7mo ago
      It's very weird, all these online laws and regulations seems like its an attempt to reduce the cost of policing by making the platforms a police force and I don't like that. If nazis gather on a platform, go get them or keep eye on them. It's even better than pretending that there are no nazis because you were able to silence them. Known cunts are much easier to deal with than cunts undercover, seriously why push people undercover? Let them speak, if that speech increases their numbers then you must work on your speech.
    • abletonlive 7mo ago
      > One can agree or disagree with this but Europe's actions are far more understandable if you see where they're coming from. I think you're falsely attributing this to WW2. Free speech is simply just not part of European culture in the way that it is a part of american culture. The ideal of "free speech" regardless of how well that ideal is implemented in practice is something that is much more instilled in US culture than European culture. They simply do not give a shit the same way that the US claims it gives a shit about free speech. To them its an afterthought. Nothing to do with WW2 and the trauma of it.
• jmkni 7mo ago
  Getting flashbacks to the letters the Pirate Bay used to send lawyers https://www.scribd.com/document/117922444/the-pirate-bay-response-to-white-stripes https://www.scribd.com/document/117922444/the-pirate-bay-res... I'm pretty sure in one they responded saying their lawyer was alseep in a ditch and would reply when he woke up lol
• ChrisArchitect 7mo ago
  Related: Ofcom has today fined 4chan £450k for not having age checks in place https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442838
• sayYayToLife 7mo ago
  [dead]
• miohtama 7mo ago
  Germany tried earlier to fine American companies for online posts using a law called "NetzDG". Gab refused to pay the fine, and it was over. > The enforcement notice itself highlights the structural tension. Despite acknowledging Gab’s US address, the German government asserts authority to pursue collection, including formal enforcement proceedings, without identifying any German subsidiary or office. > The payment instructions route funds directly to the German federal treasury, showing that the action is punitive rather than remedial. > Germany’s approach also reveals the paper trail behind modern censorship enforcement. The fine stems not from a specific post or statement, but from alleged failure to comply with aspects of NetzDG. That procedural hook enables broader regulatory reach, transforming administrative requirements into a mechanism for speech governance. https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-refuses-to-pay-germanys-fine-challenges-cross-border-online-censorship https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-refuses-to-pay-germanys-fine-c...
• EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
  Ofcom is currently threatening a Canadian forum that exists to help people with depression. Ofcom claims that geoblocking blocking the UK is "insufficient": > I've also gone back to Ofcom explicitly telling them the UK was now geoblocked (twice now) and I received a response that this was insufficient. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_run_a_selfhelp_forum_for_people_with_depression/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_ru... Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.
  • swarnie 7mo ago
    After bending over backwards for US media companies in the 2000s they thought it went both ways, turns out it doesn't. Oh well, the uncensored web from my NL VPN still looks the same.
    • NullPrefix 7mo ago
      NL VPNs will bend the knee to EU regulation
      • swarnie 7mo ago
        One click its Algeria, or Singapore, or Canada. We can move much faster then they can legislate.
        • hdgvhicv 7mo ago
          First they came for the websites but I used vpns Then they came for vpn clients but I used free software Then they came for the payment methods but I used bitcoin Then they blocked UDP at the isp but I used satelites doe linked elsewhere Then they just came for me but nobody cared as nobody else was affected
          • deleted 7mo ago
            [deleted]
    • 7mo ago
• LAC-Tech 7mo ago
  Good. These ridiculous extraterritorial laws should be broken and mocked at every opportunity.
• parliament32 7mo ago
  In the midst of the 4chan v. Ofcom civil suit? Interesting. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71209929/4chan-community-support-llc-v-uk-office-of-communications/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71209929/4chan-communit...
• phendrenad2 7mo ago
  We really need a Statesternet. People will be able to verify their identity to buy a special device which will encrypt/decrypt their traffic, and people in the UK will not be able to purchase one. The device will use GPS to confirm that it's only operating in the US.
• p0w3n3d 7mo ago
  UK is recently going more and more towards censorship and thought control, but this is only my private but honest opinion
  • ilovecake1984 7mo ago
    Not really. Actual debate is not censored. Have some class.
• RobRivera 7mo ago
  Hiroshimoot must be sweating bullets
  • Bender 7mo ago
    If it comes to it, the CIA will burn projec Hiroshimoot like they have done with many projects once they gain too much negative attention. 4chan has not been run by individuals since moot testified before congress and turned over control to the government to monitor and manipulate the youth.
• LightBug1 7mo ago
  Anyone want to sell/explain 4chan for me? I haven't thought about it at all since the last time I looked there maybe about 2 years ago. Still looks shit. What's the enduring appeal?
  • wao0uuno 7mo ago
    Modern 4chan is just a shadow of its former self. Back in the day it was a popular place on the internet where anyone could just go to and post. No verification, no captchas, minimal moderation and rules. This led mostly to chaos and illegal content being posted but sometimes that true freedom of speech and forced equality bred original, interesting discussion and hilarious memes. It was a place without points, nicknames, profiles where people could share their honest thoughts on any topic. Truly beautiful corner of the internet that I'll always remember fondly. These days everything on the internet is controlled and monitored. Modern 4chan is hosted on cloudflare and is without any doubt "pozzed". Any illusion of real anonymity has dissolved a long time ago. Lots of bots there too. You missed it by at least 15 years.
  • Blahagun 7mo ago
    Why do you have the opinion that it's shit? What have you seen there and what were you expecting? Are you aware that there are many different boards on 4chan, covering pretty much whatever you can think of? The reason for 4chan being a somewhat odd and interesting place is because the people who frequent it are immune to slander. It takes a different type of a person to be immune to it. This creates especially interesting and honest discussions.
  • whywhywhywhy 7mo ago
    The creator of the 2channel and current owner of 4chan Hiroyuki Nishimura explains it: >people can only truly discuss something when they don’t know each other. >If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don’t know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. >Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, “it’s boring,” if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work
• epolanski 7mo ago
  Can't UK simply blacklist 4chan?
  • themafia 7mo ago
    No this is about using children as pawns, not actually, like, protecting them or anything.
• yuvmal1k31 7mo ago
  [dead]
• avadodin 7mo ago
  You have been convicted in absentia of double plus ungood crime think Please report to the closest police station Miniluv
• flenserboy 7mo ago
  "safety breaches" is a deeply Orwellian term.
  • ilovecake1984 7mo ago
    In what way?
• demorro 7mo ago
  As a Brit this is so embarrassing I wish they would stop. Doesn't really seem like there's an anti-authoritarian party available to us either.
  • bspammer 7mo ago
    The most embarrassing part of that article is the comment section. Not a single dissenting voice.
• jongjong 7mo ago
  I mean the 4chan lawyer makes a good point. If you think about it, it's the Internet Service Providers in the UK who choose choose to allow this US content into the UK. Why go after 4chan? The ISPs could just shut down the BGP protocol and set up their own ICANN alternative with their own DNS system which is completely separate from the US one. So it's the UK government's choice to allow this content to the UK, not 4chan's. Or they could just put up a China-style great firewall.
  • windowliker 7mo ago
    No need to change anything, it already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
• jgilias 7mo ago
  Getting more convinced day by day that bureaucrats of all countries are all pretty dense.
• nvarsj 7mo ago
  I don't really understand what is going on with Ofcom. This nonsense, and yet they allow GBNews to keep spewing propaganda and violate almost all broadcast standards that Ofcom is supposed to enforce.
• chocoboaus3 7mo ago
  its amazing how little governments understand sovreignty and borders these days they have literally no power over things outside their own land borders and people are right to tell them to piss off.
• sackfield 7mo ago
  It feels more and more embarrassing as time goes by to tell people I am British.
• zerotolerance 7mo ago
  The best way to protect citizens of the UK from material online might be to sever their international network connections.
• windowliker 7mo ago
  4chan is already on most of the adult content filters used in the UK at ISP level (along with other such egregious offenders against childhood purity as archive.org) meaning that an explicit request to remove the filter is often required to access it... That it has taken this long to implement a universal block at the ISP level shows that the motive is something other than 'protecting the innocent'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
• sedatk 7mo ago
  Is 4Chan still accessible from the US states with age verification laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
  • betaby 7mo ago
    Yes. Opens just fine from in NYC and SF.
  • ProllyInfamous 7mo ago
    In Tennessee, 4chan is accessible without verification (but does block many porn aggregators, e.g. pornhub, redgifs).
  • Bender 7mo ago
    I am in a state with age verification nonsense and I can access if I process Cloudflares javascript.
• azangru 7mo ago
  If they blocked RT, they can block 4chan if they so choose. Why would they expect a company that does not target the British audience to have any concern for British laws?
  • hunterpayne 7mo ago
    Because the British government thinks its 1813 still.
• mgaunard 7mo ago
  The age check laws is just funneling money directly to VPN companies. There's no way anyone sensible would give over their identity to dodgy websites. It's easier to just pretend to be in a different country.
• gverrilla 7mo ago
  4chan is the one that should be mocked. One of the biggest assortment of losers on earth.
• AiStockAgent62 7mo ago
  [dead]
• TheDeFiAngel63 7mo ago
  [dead]
• 9864247888754 7mo ago
  [dead]
• stackedinserter 7mo ago
  It's insane how many people here on HN defend these bs fines. Prepare to follow Russia's laws if you normalize this.
  • ilovecake1984 7mo ago
    Yeah because you can’t pick a moral middle found between two vile extremist states like the Us and Russia. Clowns
• stodor89 7mo ago
  "Okay grandma, let's get you to bed" moment.
• frugalmail 7mo ago
  Don't use 4chan, but great job standing up to the continued attack on Free Speech. I hope more people contact their representatives/senators and get them to stop the non-stop attack happening here in the states too.
• bilekas 7mo ago
  Let my gremlin brain make number go up. At the very least just to highlight how silly the precedent set is.
• jaimex2 7mo ago
  United States remains the only place with real freedom of speech. Other places have 'hate speech' laws that severely erode it. Genuine criticism or discussion of certain topics is forbidden.
  • enrightened 7mo ago
    Absolutely true. The entirety of Western Europe including UK actively dissuade people from holding a certain set of opinions. Even the media simply doesn’t report on inconvenient events.
• randyrand 7mo ago
  Whether the data is arriving on a wire, a physical hard drive, DVD, or book, doesn’t really change anything. It is the role of customs to inspect the physical goods (i.e. physical light) that crosses the border. These are fiber connections the UK themselves chose to install. No one forced these data imports on them. North korea and China for example have extensive infrastructure to inspect and reject imported data.
• 4ggr0 7mo ago
  i love the cognitive dissonance of some USians in this comment section who believe in both of these statements: "4chan is a US company operating in the US, sure it serves content to global users but the jurisdiction is the US, we have free speech, ..." "Sure, Company X is operating in Europe, but it also serves US users so it has to respect our laws and it's warranted for the US to apply pressure and fines." at least decide for one side of the argument instead of just going the blind patriot way.
  • egorfine 7mo ago
    Yes, I was reading these comments today and I have seen this argument coming from different people multiple times. It's incredible, right?
    • 4ggr0 7mo ago
      It is...but it confirms people's imperialist mindsets. Fine to meddle with and dictate other countries, but how dare them to tell us what to do or not to do. Threatening to invade Denmark and calling NATO a joke and weak. A couple of months later blame NATO for not helping in a war you started yourself. A fish rots from the head down :)
• veunes 7mo ago
  520k sounds like a lot until you realize it's basically unenforceable if the company just ignores it
• ionwake 7mo ago
  how come noone has bothered to tell ofcom that 4chan has been clearly a honeypot for nearly a quarter of a century
• fredsted 7mo ago
  We simply can't have an Internet where you'll need to comply with 100% of legalisation of all 193+ countries at all times; it's untenable. For ofcom, 4chan is just a sticking their toes in the pool. If they fall, ofcom will have complete freedom to censor the entire Internet as they wish. It's madness.
• bell-cot 7mo ago
  Low-functioning politicians and bureaucrats keep their jobs by doing things that sound good. Do they understand the futility? I suspect most do. But trying to be high-functioning, in a low-functioning system, is also a good way to lose your job.
• heliumtera 7mo ago
  10/10 law in bongland
• bkirkby 7mo ago
  this is a poignant example of rent seeking
• Hasz 7mo ago
  good. There are plenty of laws, especially around technology, that deserve a good public mocking. At least in the US, you have 70+ year old lawmakers proposing (not even writing) laws they do not understand, passed to them by opaque groups with a obscured, albeit clear, interest. See the latest age verification bills passed by Meta through a convoluted web of influence. Bring back the technocrats.
• brightball 7mo ago
  Never thought I'd find myself cheering for 4Chan, but here we are.
• enrightened 7mo ago
  UK is being destroyed by the woke mind virus. They want random laws for online “safety” but are unable to deport even a small percentage of fake asylum seekers who have made the streets physically unsafe and are already convicted of sexual crimes. There are literally thousands of cases which seem like parody where convicted criminals either delay or escape deportations. Can’t investigate grooming gangs, can’t defend their boundaries, but surely can arrest people for Facebook posts and thought crimes.