What do they seek to accomplish here? There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests.
No UK bureaucrats are going to make a career out of this.
Going after a company that can defend itself and can't be intimidated, will prevent them from bluffing successfully against smaller companies, who could realistically be intimidated.
If I were working at Ofcom, I would stay away from the large US sites with access to good legal counsel, and instead try to intimidate the long tail that don't.
Totally separate from the issue of whether this is good or bad: it doesn't look like these Ofcom guys are playing with a full deck.
> staffed by those who couldn't make it as civil servants
Still civil service.
> I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet
They do, but the pricks who created the law are/were reactionary politicians, who couldn’t be bothered to actually draft decent laws.
Ofwat and ofgem are different issues, they have suffered regulatory capture.
Ofwat has the power to bankrupt the entire water system. Which is great, but then the government would have to bail out the shareholders. which means not only higher taxes, but no private investment for large scale. Oh and ballooning public debt.
Which means stagflation, well harder stagflation. There is a ton more to this.
Don't get me wrong it needs reform, but that costs money. We need to have the money to hire decent staff. But with the impeding cuts and what ever dipshittery from Reform next, thats not going to happen
4chan is a small company with dubious profitability so I doubt they can afford much in the way of lawyers, but it doesn't really matter because they can simply ignore the UK completely. They only accept crypto anyway, so the UK can't even take away 4chan's payment processing in the UK.
From the article it looks like the fine here is basically for not complying with information requests (rather than a full investigation having concluded that 4chan is in violation of the substance of the Act). Ofcom probably thought 4chan would just respond to the requests by geoblocking the UK, which would have been good enough for them. But once their bluff was called, they really had no choice but to levy the fine. Announcing you are investigating someone for violating the law and then not bothering to fine them when they very clearly ignore your investigation (which is itself a violation of the law) is more destructive to your credibility than anything.
It's not like the fine has zero consequences. It will likely restrict 4chan and its senior officials from visiting or dealing with the UK, which I'm sure is annoying on a personal level if nothing else. I don't know if Ofcom currently has the power to order ISPs to block non-compliant domains, but if it doesn't you can bet it will be using this to push for that power.
As for not being able to intimidate the long tail: for US companies, yes this might further weaken Ofcom's influence over them. But companies with a UK presence who try to call Ofcom's bluff after this are likely going to have a bad time.
> There is strong precedent for the US defending the 1st amendment against foreign interests.
How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? It's a fine for refusing to comply with a law in the UK; any sufficiently competent organisation could choose to comply with censorship/age gating in one country and avoid those restrictions in all others.
> How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US?
As I understand it, not at all.
I don't think the British institutions care at all about their rights to do whatever they want outside the UK; the problem is, 4chan does provide access to people in the UK, so it's a bit like a pirate radio station that the UK would like to not be receiving owing to the station's complete lack of interest in following UK laws.
To put it another way, if 4chan blocked the UK, the UK would consider this development to be appropriate. UK might not cancel the penalty fine, but that's because the offence for which it has been issued has already occurred; after all, nobody gets out of an already-issued littering ticket during a holiday by returning to their home country.
Ofcom attempting to enforce it's laws upon a US-resident corporation that has no business presence in the United Kingdom is the very definition of affecting one's right to free speech in the United States. This is why the US has a rich history of case law to draw upon for defining personal jurisdiction. In this case, Ofcom is perhaps hoping to exploit uncertainty regarding personal jurisdiction to impose its law upon foreign citizens who otherwise have no business in the United Kingdom. So, yeah, it definitely affects a company's right to free speech in the US. It affects EVERYONE's right to free speech in the US, and it should not be dismissed simply because 4chan is the defendant.
A lot of the US rules in this area came from UK courts trying to enforce defamation/libel related claims on US authors and journalists.
The American consensus basically became that US courts don’t enforce overseas judgments on free speech stuff where the speech would be legal in the US. Even if that speech could be “heard” elsewhere.
See the Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz case (2005) and subsequent US SPEECH act (2010).
The thing about laws are they stop at the border. Unless you are sufficiently powerful that you can ignore the rights of other countries and their people, the UK isn't powerful anymore, but hasn't grasped that concept yet (I'm British, at this point it's just kind of sad).
So UK laws stop at the UK border.
4Chan is a US company, based in the US, with all its people and stuff in the US. It has never had a presence in the UK.
In the US people and companies have the right to free speech guaranteed under the first amendment, that includes speech conducted online. Many people would consider having the ability to speak, but having the government restrict hearing that speech to amount to a free speech violation.
The only jurisdiction 4Chan operates in is the US and they are defending their rights: they also have that right, the US isn't North Korea, or China, or the UK.
This isn't a matter of can they censor, of course they can. This is a matter of they don't have to, and they won't.
The UK has no jurisdiction, or reason to believe they have jurisdiction, or ability to enforce its laws extraterritorially over pretty much any foreign entity, but especially not the US.
Anyway you look at this, this is a jumped up little backwater not content with robbing their own citizens of their rights, they are now trying to rob others too.
They will basically block 4chan off UK network and that will be the beginning of the internet split, which, in a world endangered again by the narrative construction will be yet another step for one-sided truths and the verge of yet another war.
4chan are the “think of the children” bad guys to make an example out of.
This isn’t a play to get money or 4chan to comply, it’s a play to increase the strength of their legislation. So expect stronger blocking etc to be on the cards to prevent foreign entities from avoiding the law.
Yeah, the ultimate goal is to end all user-generated content, first through moderation and then by algorithms, motivated by structural deficiency in commissioned for-profit contents that it is no match against user-generated. And the response sorely needed right now is resurgence of a distributed social media system that do not grossly undermine copyrights.
I think you’re overanalyzing it. They’re just enforcing the law. You and I may agree that it’s a bad law, but that doesn’t mean that the people in charge of enforcing it necessarily have complex and sinister motives.
I don't agree that wanting to further one's own career is complex or sinister. If the enforcement of laws wasn't aligned with career progress it would be bad for enforcement, including the laws that you and I want enforced.
Even if the goal is just enforcement, you would get more enforcement, collect more fines, if you didn't put your ability to actually collect fines into question. When 4chan successfully defends itself and the UK extracts no money, that will show US companies which would have been in doubt, that they can also defend themselves.
The law is law, but Ofcom wrote the regulation (1000+ pages) themselves with their interest groups. A lot of regulators went through revolving door and are now selling services for complying with Online Safety Act.
no, ofcom don't need to be picking the fights they are, they're choosing to support the political arm under the claims of "hate speech" and "ungood bad think"
Thanks for posting, an insightful overview of the ramifications of the Online Safety Act on online freedoms.
> Perhaps most troubling, the UK’s approach sets a dangerous precedent for global internet regulation. If every country can claim jurisdiction over any website accessible within its borders, the internet becomes subject to the most restrictive speech laws anywhere in the world.
Another interesting point is that the UK could just ban the websites it finds objectionable, but that'd expose them as a censor, so instead the strategy is to basically force those websites to withdraw from the market voluntarily (or comply), which is a much less revolting story to sell to its population.
First Amendment makes it hard for the government to censor or ban them outright, but onerous child protection requirements gets them to close on their own. Russ Vought:
> …you know what happens is the porn company then says, ‘We’re not going to do business in your state.’ Which of course is entirely what we were after, right?
The UK already blocks certain websites at the national level, e.g. you can’t access Pirate Bay from a UK ISP, so can’t imagine Ofcom blocking 4chan would cause much consternation among those who aren’t already against the OSA.
One interesting bit is that the lawyer, RONALD D. COLEMAN is (or at least was) a youtube lawyer.
He'd pop into 'law streams' from time to time to talk about cases and discuss newsworthy events out of the courts.
He is as if New Jersey was transmuted into a man (I say that with great affection).
I want to say, and I could be wrong, I became familiar with his name during the Rittenhouse trial. Or maybe the couple high profile trials after the Rittenhouse trial, that were popular while we all waited for covid to be 'over'.
For whatever that's worth
edit: he IS a real lawyer with real clients and real cases. I don't want to diminish anything because I called him a 'youtube lawyer'. I think it's more: A lawyer that sees value in being on youtube from time to time.
You know, I'd like to actually know the answer to the question you're posing there. Does discussing suicide increase the overall rate, is it neutral -- or does it even decrease it? The Samaritans are usually regarded as a net public benefit, though they tend not to encourage people to go through with it, whereas the Wikipedia link suggests that the users of that forum have some kind of fetish for it.
I would also expect to find that the effect of internet was minimal (in my case because I think the drivers of suicide are mostly socioeconomic), but I'd really like to see a proper study. I'm also aware that there is quite a lot of peer-reviewed evidence that pro-anorexia websites do actually cause harm, and there's an obvious parallel to be drawn.
Presumably the "big names" are able to (or have already) implemented the requirements under the law and have an economic and reputational incentive to comply.
Unfortunately, I don't see any site being blocked that will make these shameless gremlins in power let go of their authoritarian control over the public's lives.
Semi-related view from a former oldfag (is that term still used?), I am of the firm opinion that Insta and Twitter are far more damaging than 4chan ever was. Not that it doesn't have its filth, of course. But these image boards are too obscure for broad appeal and do not purposefully mess with people's psyche to show them more ads.
"Two more weeks" is a meme phrase used when an event will never actually happen. For example: "trust the plan! just two more weeks until XYZ" when XYZ will not happen.
Readit News
Totally separate from the issue of whether this is good or bad: it doesn't look like these Ofcom guys are playing with a full deck.
they're a quango, staffed by those who couldn't make it as civil servants (not a high bar)
I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet
similarly useless are ofwat (water) and ofgem (energy), both of which allowed massive scandals to happen on their watch
ofwat: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/21/new-powerfu...
ofgem: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63805028
Still civil service.
> I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet
They do, but the pricks who created the law are/were reactionary politicians, who couldn’t be bothered to actually draft decent laws.
Ofwat and ofgem are different issues, they have suffered regulatory capture.
Ofwat has the power to bankrupt the entire water system. Which is great, but then the government would have to bail out the shareholders. which means not only higher taxes, but no private investment for large scale. Oh and ballooning public debt.
Which means stagflation, well harder stagflation. There is a ton more to this.
Don't get me wrong it needs reform, but that costs money. We need to have the money to hire decent staff. But with the impeding cuts and what ever dipshittery from Reform next, thats not going to happen
It's not like the fine has zero consequences. It will likely restrict 4chan and its senior officials from visiting or dealing with the UK, which I'm sure is annoying on a personal level if nothing else. I don't know if Ofcom currently has the power to order ISPs to block non-compliant domains, but if it doesn't you can bet it will be using this to push for that power.
As for not being able to intimidate the long tail: for US companies, yes this might further weaken Ofcom's influence over them. But companies with a UK presence who try to call Ofcom's bluff after this are likely going to have a bad time.
Deleted Comment
How does this ruling affect the company's right to free speech in the US? It's a fine for refusing to comply with a law in the UK; any sufficiently competent organisation could choose to comply with censorship/age gating in one country and avoid those restrictions in all others.
As I understand it, not at all.
I don't think the British institutions care at all about their rights to do whatever they want outside the UK; the problem is, 4chan does provide access to people in the UK, so it's a bit like a pirate radio station that the UK would like to not be receiving owing to the station's complete lack of interest in following UK laws.
To put it another way, if 4chan blocked the UK, the UK would consider this development to be appropriate. UK might not cancel the penalty fine, but that's because the offence for which it has been issued has already occurred; after all, nobody gets out of an already-issued littering ticket during a holiday by returning to their home country.
The American consensus basically became that US courts don’t enforce overseas judgments on free speech stuff where the speech would be legal in the US. Even if that speech could be “heard” elsewhere.
See the Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz case (2005) and subsequent US SPEECH act (2010).
So UK laws stop at the UK border.
4Chan is a US company, based in the US, with all its people and stuff in the US. It has never had a presence in the UK.
In the US people and companies have the right to free speech guaranteed under the first amendment, that includes speech conducted online. Many people would consider having the ability to speak, but having the government restrict hearing that speech to amount to a free speech violation.
The only jurisdiction 4Chan operates in is the US and they are defending their rights: they also have that right, the US isn't North Korea, or China, or the UK.
This isn't a matter of can they censor, of course they can. This is a matter of they don't have to, and they won't.
The UK has no jurisdiction, or reason to believe they have jurisdiction, or ability to enforce its laws extraterritorially over pretty much any foreign entity, but especially not the US.
Anyway you look at this, this is a jumped up little backwater not content with robbing their own citizens of their rights, they are now trying to rob others too.
This isn’t a play to get money or 4chan to comply, it’s a play to increase the strength of their legislation. So expect stronger blocking etc to be on the cards to prevent foreign entities from avoiding the law.
Even if the goal is just enforcement, you would get more enforcement, collect more fines, if you didn't put your ability to actually collect fines into question. When 4chan successfully defends itself and the UK extracts no money, that will show US companies which would have been in doubt, that they can also defend themselves.
Dead Comment
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/when-trolls-take-on-tyra...
> Perhaps most troubling, the UK’s approach sets a dangerous precedent for global internet regulation. If every country can claim jurisdiction over any website accessible within its borders, the internet becomes subject to the most restrictive speech laws anywhere in the world.
Another interesting point is that the UK could just ban the websites it finds objectionable, but that'd expose them as a censor, so instead the strategy is to basically force those websites to withdraw from the market voluntarily (or comply), which is a much less revolting story to sell to its population.
First Amendment makes it hard for the government to censor or ban them outright, but onerous child protection requirements gets them to close on their own. Russ Vought:
> …you know what happens is the porn company then says, ‘We’re not going to do business in your state.’ Which of course is entirely what we were after, right?
He'd pop into 'law streams' from time to time to talk about cases and discuss newsworthy events out of the courts.
He is as if New Jersey was transmuted into a man (I say that with great affection).
I want to say, and I could be wrong, I became familiar with his name during the Rittenhouse trial. Or maybe the couple high profile trials after the Rittenhouse trial, that were popular while we all waited for covid to be 'over'.
For whatever that's worth
edit: he IS a real lawyer with real clients and real cases. I don't want to diminish anything because I called him a 'youtube lawyer'. I think it's more: A lawyer that sees value in being on youtube from time to time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matal_v._Tam
https://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/legal-publications-ron...
Deleted Comment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctioned_Suicide
I would also expect to find that the effect of internet was minimal (in my case because I think the drivers of suicide are mostly socioeconomic), but I'd really like to see a proper study. I'm also aware that there is quite a lot of peer-reviewed evidence that pro-anorexia websites do actually cause harm, and there's an obvious parallel to be drawn.
Deleted Comment
Unfortunately, I don't see any site being blocked that will make these shameless gremlins in power let go of their authoritarian control over the public's lives.