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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 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 agoAnd 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 agoMost 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 agoThe 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 agoAnd then they'll make VPNs illegal
- itintheory 7mo agoI suspect they'll be harder (impossible?) to block, but that will probably deter the casual user.
- Melonai 7mo agoRussia is leading the pack in banning VPNs, and they're, surprisingly, getting pretty good at it. They caught my naive attempts at trying to use Tailscale, WireGuard and OpenVPN immediately. People in government are laughing at the populace struggling to bypass their whitelists, blocks and slowdowns, directly saying that "you can have your VPN, it just won't work, and you will never access anything beyond our Russian sites again. Have fun.". Currently trying to find a way around it using some of the new VPN protocols that popped up trying to bypass the Roskomnadzor DPI, and maybe, I certainly hope, that I will even succeed, but either way they're showing that it's technically feasible. I really hope for all the people in the UK that your country doesn't go down this route.
- konart 7mo agoJust install 3x-ui or Remnawave and spend some time configuring them for security.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- policno 7mo ago[flagged]
- mikeodds 7mo agoAlready have the makings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_th...
- selfmodruntime 7mo agoYou'd be amazed at the times I've argued with people on HN that free speech infringement by the UK government has grown rampant, only for them to enact the next draconian law a month later.
- dmix 7mo agoUK is trying to be like Russia and China, where a minder will show up at your door if you post something the government doesn't like. Then people online will defend it because the investigation didn't turn into a full criminal charge or they say the people simply deserved it. The reality is this will seriously chill speech broadly across the country regardless of either of those outcomes, and the technical costs of enforcement will be steep.
- 4ndrewl 7mo agoWe don't have any pro-free-speech political parties, nor a written constitution unfortunately. I mean there are parties that say they like free speech, but it never extends to the sort of speech they disagree with, or by people of the wrong colour/religion/gender etc.
- hunterpayne 7mo ago"UK is trying to be like Russia and China, where a minder will show up at your door if you post something the government doesn't like." The UK government has been openly doing this for a couple of years by now.
- vdqtp3 7mo agoSame. The responses are consistently "but they only restrict bad speech"
- RobotToaster 7mo agoWe've had Hadrian's firewall blocking certain piracy sites for years.
- deaddodo 7mo agoAs shown in that same article, they also responded: >>> "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. "The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short." <<< Quite frankly she seems completely out of touch with her own argument. The UK can certainly legislate away tobacco sales, for instance; they can't go after tobacco producers in a foreign state. 4Chan operates in the US and is a US company. They have no jurisdiction over it, even if their citizenry can access it; it's on them to block that access if they don't like it. Unless they're also implying that the US government should be allowed to go after UK companies that don't follow it's free speech regulations because American citizens can access them.
- chrisjj 7mo ago> 4Chan operates in the US And the UK... each time it delivers there.
- wat10000 7mo agoI disagree. It's no different from selling to a foreign buyer by sending the product in the mail. You're not doing business in their country, and it's the buyer's responsibility to adhere to their local laws about imports, not yours.
- richwater 7mo agoThe UK can block whatever they want if they'd like to become an authoritarian firewall state. But they have no legal basis to fine 4chan.
- 369548684892826 7mo agoSurely they do have the legal basis, that's how the fine got issued. What they're missing is any way to enforce it.
- kps 7mo agoIt's unfortunate that the US lawyers did not cite the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram.
- 2b3a51 7mo agoArkell v Pressdram was in response to a civil claim that never reached a court, so slightly different. I take the wider point though.
- Onavo 7mo agoThe directors and officers better not transit through Heathrow without giving the current whitehouse admin a hefty donation first. Mother Britain will be happy to make an example out of them if Uncle Sam doesn't intervene.
- dmix 7mo agoThe lawyer is great on Twitter, he's not only defending 4chan, he's on a crusade to prevent this stuff in the future and trying to get bills passed in the US. https://x.com/prestonjbyrne https://x.com/prestonjbyrne
- epolanski 7mo agoBut 4chan doesn't geoblock users? So it's clearly operating globally. Country flags are a major feature of the board.
- sippeangelo 7mo ago4chan is clearly operating in the US. The UK can easily cut the overseas cables and fix the problem!
- epolanski 7mo agoIt doesn't matter where 4Chan is incorporated if it offers a service available to other countries. If I offer a service in US I still have to respect US law, it doesn't matter that I'm based in Luxembourg or New Zealand. The same applies in reverse. E.g. many US news outlets never cared to implement gdpr and geoblocked European users from accessing their websites.
- andersa 7mo agoThinking that you are operating in the UK because a UK user can theoretically send packets to you, is similar to thinking a corner store in Japan is operating in the UK because a brit can theoretically get on a plane and fly there to shop.
- AlexeyBelov 7mo agoNo, if a Brit goes to shop in Japan the transaction happens in Japan. So the shop operates entirely in Japan.
- hrmtst93837 7mo ago[flagged]
- senordevnyc 7mo agoI run a site in the US and have zero intention of implementing GDPR or geoblocking anyone. If the feckless EU bureaucrats don’t want me serving Europeans, they can either block me or convince their citizens to stop requesting things from my servers. Beyond that, they can fuck off.