Ofcom Concedes Defeat in the 4chan Case

This was such a weird case. Usually when a country goes after a foreign business they enforce it by imposing restrictions within their own borders and threatening the operators with legal action if they ever enter the country. If the operators don’t visit the country and their banking doesn’t cross a business that must follow those laws (which is hard), it’s otherwise symbolic.

I may be reading too much into the editorialized writeups about Ofcom but even their statements imply they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?

This quote from the court is amazing:

> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution

Indeed. Who could have predicted this?

Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all? Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates? Are they using this as a demonstration of why internet censorship is the only solution? It’s hard to imagine why they thought they were going to get anywhere with this case, unless failing was the goal

This fits quite neatly with Dominic Cummings' comments to the House of Lords Constitutional Committee[0] about how the British Civil Service can't do anything because no one with any talent wants to work there.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBBYvj4YQLE (full video is an hour and a half, but you can skip to any bit because he just makes the same handful of points over and over again)

In an ideal world, exclusively-US-based companies that host message boards, chat rooms, instant messaging services, and the like would look at this saga and

1) Notice that the odds that a foreign power is going to be able to harm them in any meaningful way for violating their "child 'safety'" laws that curtail freedom of speech and association are very low

2) Notice that 4chan is fighting harder to resist these attacks on free speech and association than many of big names in the sector and reflect on what it might mean when _4chan_ is the hero of the story

Alas.

This is just laying down the ground work for Russia-style deep packet inspection. “We don’t have a capability to censor the foreign internet, so we need measures to cut off the violating sites from our side”

I hope the precedent doesn't change to trying to enforce fines on foreign companies by instead arresting and fining employees upon arrival to the UK.

Though I guess we've already seen something similar in France with Telegram...

Think of the kids the world we failed to protect by not having passport checks and government snitch at the 4chan login.

But don’t worry! We will check your passport when you open your phone (already live in the UK, efforts supported by the GBP 2M secret donation of Meta to NGOs).

And what’s the worst thing that could happen? No one would for sure arrest you for being critical of a foreign government.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action...

I hope the precedent doesn't change to trying to enforce fines on foreign companies by instead arresting and fining employees upon arrival to the UK.

Though I guess we've already seen something similar in 2024 with France and Telegram...

When European governments say they will lead in technology regulation, this is what they mean.

Good, fuck off ofcom. We always mocked Chinese censorship but we’re not really any different now.

It's annoying, in the UK you can browse 4chan but not Imgur

does this mean the UK will block 4chan in the UK? if the defense is jurisdictional then 4chan can continue to serve US users, but there would be no recourse if the UK blocks it in their jurisdiction

> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution

Good grief. This is sad stuff.

[flagged]

This was a fairly stupid case. Ofcom didn't try to enforce it abroad, 4chan sued Ofcom in case it did (mostly for PR purposes).

Ofcom knows its rulings don't apply internationally.

So yes, the status quo is enforced by the US courts, as if it was ever in doubt and nothing at all has changed.

Cool. So 4chan is going to get DNS blocked in the UK and I can finally stop hearing about this and all the Americans takes on what my country's enforcement mechanisms should be.