- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
4chan and Kiwi Farms sued the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) over its age verification law in U.S. federal court Wednesday, fulfilling a promise it announced on August 23. In the lawsuit, 4chan and Kiwi Farms claim that threats and fines they have received from Ofcom “constitute foreign judgments that would restrict speech under U.S. law.”
Both entities say in the lawsuit that they are wholly based in the U.S. and that they do not have any operations in the United Kingdom and are therefore not subject to local laws. Ofcom’s attempts to fine and block 4chan and Kiwi Farms, and the lawsuit against Ofcom, highlight the messiness involved with trying to restrict access to specific websites or to force companies to comply with age verification laws.
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If I were a bit richer, and a really crooked bastard, I’d be setting up an age verification company right now.
The sheer amount of blackmail material I could amass in 1 month would beggar belief. Hell, I’d probably bag enough politicians to evade prosecution for the rest of my natural life.
All you would get would be politicians because everybody else knows how to use a VPN.
I know the OSA is bad, but this libertarian attitude American tech has of we can operate anywhere in the world and not care about its laws because we’re American is genuinely quire harmful.
I honestly have pretty mixed feelings on the OSA, I think government regulation of social media is actually pretty necessary as these sites have shown they can’t or won’t regulate themselves. But the OSA is pretty clearly not about user safety, the Times even quotes the government as saying:
First, we are told, the relevant secretary of state (Michelle Donelan) expressed “concern” that the legislation might whack sites such as Amazon instead of Pornhub. In response, officials explained that the regulation in question was “not primarily aimed at … the protection of children”, but was about regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse”, a phrase that rather gives away the political thinking behind the act.
I’d rather if they just spat it out that we should take back domestic control over social media. And made a law surrounding that.
Honestly wouldn’t mind if they banned large foreign social media platforms in exchange for domestic ones.
People constantly whine about immigration and mohammed down the road ruining their culture. The real risk to our culture is people consuming american mass media and falling to their machines.
we can operate anywhere in the world and not care about its laws because we’re American is genuinely quite harmful.
Philosophically I have trouble understanding how law has jurisdiction over anything digital.
If I encrypt a stream of zeros and ones and spread that around various geographical locations, why should the law care?
(BTW, I believe there is a line somewhere, I just want help finding it. I’m not convinced the current line is correct)
The law regulates where your customers/users are, not where you are.
If you run a website hosted in Zanzibar then your server may be subject to Tanzanian law. But if you want people from the UK to access your website, it also needs to comply with relevant UK law. If you don’t, the government could order ISPs to block access for UK users.
If we’re talking about some no-name blog then you probably don’t care about this. But if you’re running an e-commerce site or you’re monetizing clicks from UK users via advertising then having a large market cut off from you might hurt your bottom line.
You are taking the government’s position without consideration.
In my example the numbers I have encoded don’t care where they live or who sees them.
Let’s take any onion website as an example. We don’t know where it lives. It doesn’t know who is accessing it. How can any law be applied to anything .onion ?
The Kiwi farms should be wiped off the internet. 4chan you can perhaps have some sympathy for as it’s just an unmoderated hellhole. Kiwifarms actively encourages cyber bullying people to death. It should have been blocked without the need of an online safety act.
Kiwi farms is extremely racist and hateful but in terms of damage i think there are tons of reddit, discord, Facebook communities that are just as bad. Reddit allows communities that do everything they can to interfere and destroy people. I’m pretty sure reddit bullied some animal sanctuary youtber to suicide a few months ago.
Extreme anti social behaviour is so mainstream now it blows my mind. When I see it on the fringe of the internet I’m not surprised but when its right there on the most popular websites with hundreds of thousands joining in it makes me sick. The only difference between these communities and KF is that KF users can say slurs and dont have to mask up their language.
I guess KiwiFarms is public as well. Discord servers have a private nature and are hard to police.
Don’t tip the cow is as ubiquitous rules 1 and 2. They might be more abrasive about it than I’d like, but they’re one of the only places left that exposes heinous actions of internet personalities, and I’d like to avoid creators that are abusers or what have you
Are you talking about Kiwi Farms? Because they do a little more then ‘expose abusive creators’, like what they did to Near.
I swear they had a suicide counter on there.
I remember they were being pathetic about Near. Yeah, sure, Near did a handful of annoying stuff, but it was basically just stupid acts of judgement over things that at the end of the day are rather niche and trivial. Doesn’t justify punching someone nevermind killing them.
This story is a rollercoaster of emotions for me. For one it makes me feel icky to agree with either of these vile sites, but I also think the UK should have some power over cesspools on the Internet. The problem is the whole concept was never built with the idea of needing to moderate people around the globe that may have conflicting laws/regulations. And typically jurisdiction would decide whose laws take precedent, but a site can be hosted anywhere around the world and reach everyone. And without a physical presence in the UK, I don’t think we have a great way to deal with things like this law.
A great example against the UK here is copyright law. If the US doesn’t like someone anywhere else downloading US works, they can’t just enforce US law by going and getting those individuals, they need to work with that country and either have some sort of agreement or go pound salt.
In theory the country themselves should be the ones to block access for their own residents, like how China attempts to do so.
It shouldn’t be a requirement for the companies to bear the burden of verifying their users imo.
I just assumed that would be the case and that websites that don’t comply would get blocked? Is that not the case? So they make a law they have no way of actually applying?
That would be the case if they had any interest in actually blocking the website. They don’t want the website blocked because they want the data collection going on about who’s actually accessing the website. The data collection is the point, they just use “think of the children” as the excuse.
Usually they sue the company into complying
kiwi farms and 4chan can die in a fire
This does sound like exactly the sort of opponents to really put people off opposing the OSA.
I already feel myself involuntarily warming to the OSA just because I know it pisses 4chan off.
same!
I honestly thought kiwifarms was already dead. This post is the first I’ve heard of them in 2 years - could’ve sworn they were shut down or something
Because of this? Or something else?
kf’s entire existance is doxxing and harassing trans people and driving them to commit suicide.
Gotcha. Never heard of them before now. Sounds like they are worse than 4chan.
Kiwi Farms and some 4chan content have to already be illegal. No new far reaching law necessary right?
Kiwi Farms was already blocked in the UK before the OSA, 4chan still isn’t but there’s no reason it couldn’t be from what I’ve seen/heard of it.
Kiwifarms still works.
Apparently it’s only if you have some ISP level filters enabled, which seems like a cop out: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67275151.
Only with parental controls turned on for some ISPs… So basically in the same boat as pornhub.
Is it possible for the judge to find against both sides?
Well…yes? It is.
I’ll put £2 on a US court invalidating fines and a UK court placing a proscription on providers enabling access to 4Chan. Hell, if 4Chan got labelled as a terrorist website would that even be objectively wrong?
Regardless of the OSA, the concept that the USA can impose their bullshit in this country is abhorrent, and any government backing down on this will be viewed as feckless, now and forever.
Peak hypocrisy. The UK is trying to impose it’s bullshit worldwide.
All countries need to understand that they can only control what is within their borders.
How is this any more hypocritical than a US demand of access to UK public spaces and imposition of USA law in UK homes, or the Chinese firewall blocking access to websites?
It’s not more hypocritical. It’s just as hypocritical.
no they’re not; if 4chan wants to operate in the uk then they need to follow the laws there.
They have no legal entity in the uk
they operate and serve visitors in the uk.
That’s not how the internet works. They operate a website that is exposed on the internet. The key here is exposed. They aren’t coming over to the UK to operate. When you visit their site you’re going to them.
It’s like saying a small village in France that has a bakery serving cum filled doughnuts (LOL I don’t know WTF French people like to do) serves visitors in the UK because there is a railway line in the village connected to Eurostar which in turn connects to the UK. At that point they are only serving visitors that happen to be in that little French village. And if no French laws against cum filled doughnuts exist then why should the bakery pay UK fines?
That’s not how the internet works. They operate a website that is exposed on the internet. The key here is exposed. They aren’t coming over to the UK to operate. When you visit their site you’re going to them.
If they don’t comply, the UK will order ISPs to block access.
If 4chan really genuinely doesn’t care about UK users (“it’s not our fault some people from the UK access our site”), then they won’t be bothered about this. If the loss of UK users is considered significant to them, then clearly they are actively interested in serving the UK market.
It’s like saying a small village in France that has a bakery serving cum filled doughnuts (LOL I don’t know WTF French people like to do) serves visitors in the UK because there is a railway line in the village connected to Eurostar which in turn connects to the UK. At that point they are only serving visitors that happen to be in that little French village. And if no French laws against cum filled doughnuts exist then why should the bakery pay UK fines?
What matters is where the customer is at the time, not where they’re from. If a British person goes to France and buys food from a French shop, they are for all intents and purposes a French customer at the time the sale takes place; French food standards laws would apply.
By the same token, if you travel to France and then use the internet to access 4chan, you are a French internet user for the purposes of that interaction, and French laws would apply to you. If a French person came to the UK and accessed 4chan, British laws would apply to them at that time.
Now if your hypothetical French bakery wanted to export its products to the UK (i.e. sell them to British consumers who are in Britain), they’d need to meet British food standards. The fact that they’re a French business doesn’t exempt them from that.
What matters is where the customer is at the time, not where they’re from. If a British person goes to France and buys food from a French shop, they are for all intents and purposes a French customer at the time the sale takes place; French food standards laws would apply.
I think I agree with this.
By the same token, if you travel to France and then use the internet to access 4chan, you are a French internet user for the purposes of that interaction, and French laws would apply to you. If a French person came to the UK and accessed 4chan, British laws would apply to them at that time.
Fair. But the UK law isn’t going after the user it’s going after the provider. In another country. That’s the distinction, right?
Attorney General James Uthmeier is taking legal action against multiple online pornography websites acting in violation of Florida law by not requiring age verification before accessing adult content. Last year, Florida enacted HB 3, requiring commercial entities that distribute sexually explicit material online that is harmful to minors to verify that individuals attempting to access the material are at least 18 years of age. Attorney General Uthmeier today filed legal suit against Webgroup Czech Republic, NKL Associates, Sonesta Technologies, Inc., GGW Group, and Traffic F for breaking state law and endangering minors.
“Multiple porn companies are flagrantly breaking Florida’s age verification law by exposing children to harmful, explicit content. As a father of young children, and as Attorney General, this is completely unacceptable,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier. “We are taking legal action against these online pornographers who are willfully preying on the innocence of children for their financial gain.”
Is this how the internet works? Lawyers in Florida decide how computers connect to each other? Interesting 🤔.
How do you suggest any government regulation of the web should work then? Should our laws against things like hate speech and CSAM not apply to sites that don’t have legal presences in the UK?
Also, the bakery is a bad metaphor as you have to physically leave the country to get to it. A better analogy would be if you could order from a French bakery with something like Just Eat and get it delivered to your house, which UK laws should obviously apply in that case.
Whether you’re the courier yourself or it is an Uber Eats rider doesn’t matter. The point is there is a pathway to another jurisdiction where a transaction happens. At the point of transaction, in that jurisdiction, are any laws being broken? If the answer is no, as much as we might not like it, then that is massive jurisdictional over reach.
Another analogy: You’re a UK satire site that operates in English and talks about everything from games to politics and one of your users posts a picture of President Xi dressed as Winnie The Pooh eating a cum filled doughnut he bought from this little French village on his last state visit to France. Suddenly China takes umbrage to this and sends you a letter demanding money and threatening arrest (because they’re like that). What do you say then? Get fucked! Right? You’ve broken no UK laws. It’s legitimate satire. But China doesn’t see it that way. Who wins?
How do you suggest any government regulation of the web should work then? Should our laws against things like hate speech and CSAM not apply to sites that don’t have legal presences in the UK?
Fair point. It’s very tricky to get the balance right. I don’t have an easy answer as it is not an easy subject. You could take the Chinese strategy and remove the access to these sites for Chinese users (a great firewall but Bri’ish. Oi M8 u can’t internet there). Or you reach outside your sovereign jurisdiction and attempt to impose laws from one country on another.
I suppose traditionally if you look at this in the same way as breaking regulations by larger multinationals the point there is that they do have a non trivial presence on the UK (or the EU) and so we can play the game of fining them on our own soil under our own jurisdictions or making it harder to grant new business to them. Until you reach the size of Apple who simply say “get fucked UK I won’t bow to you”. But you can’t do that to companies that don’t have a presence in the UK as the threats are meaningless.
Which brings you back to the Great British Bake Off Wall. Only we need to figure out how that can be used using existing laws and not abused. But then one needs to accept that we are more like China than we want to admit?
As a UK citizen who has massive issues with the OSA, this story makes me empathise with how the ordinary citizens of Minas Tirith must’ve felt as they hid as best they could but could hear the marauding Orc army murdering their way through the city - and then hearing the clear horns trumpeting from over a hill in the middle distance…only to see not the armed might of Rohan come over the brow but a loose collection of people so bad even Sauron was too ashamed to have serve with him.
