longislandguidoUK's Ofcom has today fined 4chan £450k for not having age checks in place
4chan is still a thing? I thought it died long ago. Perhaps I grew up.
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]
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.
Most Brits already have a VPN to beat off so the effect will be negligible.
As 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.
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.
How about the EU imposing GDPR restrictions on non-eu companies?
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.
Amateurs. Russia has fined Google more than the GDP of the entire planet. Odds of collecting are about the same.