> The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”. This line is taught to every first-year English law student.
Initially this seems like disrespect for another country's sovereignty. But really the crucial thing is:
> We explained to the UK that the Online Safety Act had a snowball’s chance in hell of being enforced in the United States
Ofcom has to go through the motions of telling 4chan they can't smoke in Paris because of the (very on-brand) nanny law.
> The Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom, and this expressly includes conducting investigations into, and imposing penalties for, non-compliance by providers of online services with their duties under the Act. […] The Act expressly anticipates that it will have extra-territorial effect
I don't see anything wrong here: Sure, Ofcom can have the legal authority to regulate online safety worldwide. It's just that this... legal authority... isn't quite enforceable outside the UK jurisdiction. How unfortunate!
There is plenty of precedence for this, and I am about to fudge a bunch of details.
The basic point is that the United Kingdom can make any law it sees fit to any place or person. Even though it may only exercise punitive issues once they arrival inside the physical jurisdiction. So the example I was taught, the UK can pass a law banning smoking in Paris, but may not arrest/fine until such criminal trespassers get off the ferry in UK.
This means that the Sovereign power is omni-whatevers, unless you explicitly say otherwise eg The UK Legislated their way out of South Africa and Canada expilictly.
If 4Chans money ever passes through a UK bank, I'm sure Ofcom will grab what they can. It's a very British shakedown.
> The Act expressly anticipates that it will have extra-territorial effect
It also continues like this:
> This does not mean that the Act extends to all use of in-scope services globally. […] “The duties extend only to the design, operation and use of the service in the UK and, for duties expressed to apply in relation to ‘users’, as it affects the UK users of the service”
Wouldn't this mean that the Act only applies to services explicitly design/targeting UK users/visitors? So if you're building a general service for no particular residents/citizens, the Act doesn't apply to you? Or am I misunderstanding something?
It’s presumably meant to be effective against global corporations like Meta and Google that have significant operations in the UK. They can be liable for non-compliance globally and Ofcom doesn’t have to show it occurred within the UK.
The concern is they decide a site non-compliant, can't do shit about it in absence of British presence, then go after Britons accessing the site.
Kiwifarms stopped serving UK IPs, not because of fear of enforcement but rather because they don't anyone British jailed. The UK landing page straight up says 'use Tor'.
It explicitly says that 7% of their users are coming from UK. If UK blocks them, they will loose noticeable part of advertising revenue. If there was no money at stake, they could just ignore Ofcom and sleep well. But they appear to be very agitated about the fact that they may loose their second biggest market.
Honestly, I don’t understand anyone on 4chan side here: they are de facto in UK jurisdiction because they earn money from that user base, so either they comply or they leave. All of this freedom-of-speech and US lawsuit hype is just a distraction circus.
> It's just that this... legal authority... isn't quite enforceable outside the UK jurisdiction.
That appears to be the widely held understanding in this particular case.
I'm not so sure. This isn't a strictly black letter law matter. It probably should be, and I'd prefer that it was, but I see political angles to this.
Right now, it is improbable that Trump's DOJ has any interest in doing Ofcom's bidding in the US for UK "online safety" violations, real or imagined. But a world where the US DOJ might does exist. We're the political vectors aligned differently; say, for example, Ofcom was pursuing 4chan for "supporting" ISIS in the UK, I think few people would be surprised learn that Trump's DOJ was eager to "investigate," and perhaps synthesize some indictable offenses, and perhaps even extradite.
Have we not seen, and are we not seeing now, ample examples of similar abuses of power?
So I see much of the rhetoric, and also this lawyer's flippancy, as naïve. Given the optimal set of office holders and sufficient moral panic over some matter, Ofcom et al. could very well have real leverage in the US.
It doesn't go nearly as far as US legislation such as the trade embargoes against Cuba, Iran, or Venezuela. In that the US effectively harms any company that does business with a sanctioned country by sanctioning the company in the US. By the same logic, the UK could sanction any company that does business with 4chan and prevent it from doing any business in the UK.
> The [Online Safety] Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom
And so they should, within the borders of the UK.
It's illegal to own unlicensed firearms in the UK. In the US, it is legal. UK authorities can prevent ownership of firearms in the UK via penalties, prevent firms from selling firearms in the UK, and set up import controls to prevent people from importing guns bought abroad. They cannot prevent foreign companies from selling firearms abroad.
Ofcom can institute penalties for UK consumers who access illegal content, prevent firms from providing such content on UK soil, and put up firewalls to prevent people from digitally importing such content into the UK. They cannot prevent foreign companies from providing such content.
Ofcom is being lazy and is trying to offload the responsibility to foreign firms.
Safety and liberty are often at odds. Let the UK decide the balance for their citizens and let their citizens bear the benefits and costs of implementing the measures.
> They cannot prevent foreign companies from providing such content.
Said companies often find it less burdensome to comply than the option of being outright blocked from the market. Brazil did that a couple times with a couple different companies. If a company wants to provide services to a given jurisdiction, it needs to comply with local regulations.
Strange that this is framed as a national sovereignty issue not an issue of UK government’s overwrought free speech repression and its utilization of corporate bullying to that end. This is exactly the thing we don’t want democratic governments to do - congeal with corporate power against their people. Appealing to legality when the laws are themselves unjust is not a defense. The online safety act is broad and vague and not in the interests of UK citizens, so sovereignty appeals are completely disingenuous here. When we talk about sovereignty what we are really referring to is the power of the UK government over its people and the subservience expected of entities like 4chan to that end.
We see these exact same mechanisms in the US and that’s precisely why we should not manufacture rationalizations for this kind of policy - the societal decline as a result of this cynical trend is clear.
They're not being lazy. The political reality is that the people of the UK are mostly sick of this shit so harassing the sources (4chan and others) is gonna cause less pushback for the same results than fining people.
> and set up import controls to prevent people from importing guns bought abroad.
In this example 4chan is 'importing' it's content to the UK. I agree though, Ofcom should just go straight to banning these websites that won't comply, rather than this silly and pointless song and dance. Ultimately that's the only real enforcement tool they have. For certain websites that will be enough (Facebook, etc.) for them to follow whatever law for the regions they want to be accessible in.
More odious nannying by silly civil servants. If Britain is to restore cultural leadership it needs to move policy away from this horrible trend of policing what people say and think, and focus its energy on better policing what people do.
I don't mean this to be as insulting as it may, but the UK government trying to police US businesses has always felt like a toddler trying to ground his mom.
Unfortunately, Britain, like America, is seized by the worst of both worlds because conservatives and business interests have captured the electorate and narrowly agree on authoritarian nonsense.
On the one hand if you police what people say and think you risk moderation being weponized into censorship. On the other hand if you don't you risk big corp weaponizing free speech into misinformation.
It's not a simple problem to solve, and it's not like having one problem is better than the other, because both devolve outside the boundaries of democracy.
England was cooked in WW2. While the USA was landing on hte moon and back, the UK borrowed $1Billion dollars because they caused a deficit after the war. Rather than moving forward, the monarchy held the UK back from progress. And they still are, Brexit was the latest scheme. charlie isn't going to help them get out of the 18th Century.
I think the premise of this is simple, and a lot of people seem to not be understanding this...
The UK can make a law and apply it however they see fit. 4Chan is providing a service to UK people (a website you can access) and is not implementing the law. Ultimately the UK cannot enforce this law until money destined to/from 4Chan passes through the UK or people associated with the site visit UK territories.
In practicality this law for the most part will just mean either websites block the UK or UK ISPs are forced to block websites.
But this law was designed for the websites and platforms that will not be willing to do that as they make money off of UK citizens, such as Amazon/Facebook/Youtube/etc.
If a website blocks UK users then the law doesn't apply as it is only concerned with protecting UK citizens. If a foreign company was shipping drugs or guns to UK children, or your choice of obvious contraband, then why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable? This is how it has always worked and I am not seeing why this is a problem just because it's in the digital space.
Putting the burden on site operators to geoblock UK users is not only placing an incredible burden on individual operators, it doesn't even work.
It is not the responsibility of foreign companies to enforce or even acknowledged the UK's laws. If the UK has a problem, they have tools to solve it on their own soil. If they want to enforce their laws they need to pay for it.
The UK is trying to bully and scare foreign website operators regardless of scale or type of business into paying to enforce UK laws outside of the UK.
If they want a website blocked, the only way to make that work is to block it and pay for it themselves.
> why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable?
Literally because the entity is not under the jurisdiction of the UK. The UK can force domestic companies to block the website but they cant force the website itself to do anything. The claims of fines against 4chan are therefore nonsensical. Probably just part of the legal proceedings prior to blocking the site I guess but still strange to see.
> why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable?
If I transmit insults of dear leader Kim Jung Un on amateur radio, then those radio waves will reach DPRK. I likely would be breaking DPRK law.
Why wouldn't they have the power? Same reason my decree that guns are now banned in the US is not even refuted, but ignored.
4chan has no obligation or even reason to even respond to the UK except as entertainment (this reply was entertaining), and to send a message to the US that (in its opinion) the US government cooperating with the UK on this would be illegal by US law, the only law that matters to the US legal system. Other countries laws only matter insofar as they are allowed by US law. Foreign laws will not get US constitution bypass unless the US constitution itself allows it.
It's as if DPRK demanded to have a US citizen extradited in order to be executed for blasphemy. All that US citizen cares about is to give a heads up to the US that "if these people come knocking, tell them to go fuck themselves".
What is the UK government going to do, send bobbies over to attack 4chan owners with nerve gas on US soil?
What's the alternative? I'm sure there are countries where it's illegal for women to show their faces on TV. Why wouldn't that country have the power to hold any website where women's faces are shown accountable?
On a more depressing note, as is super clear in the US lately, crime is perfectly legal, if your friend (or POTUS you bribed) orders you to not be prosecuted. Or pardons you for being a drug kingpin and mobster ordering murders of innocent people (Ross Ulbricht).
Power ultimately comes from the exercise of violence. The UK cannot exercise state violence on US soil. That's a US monopoly under very harsh penalty. On US soil only US law (or in the case of Trump, lawlessness) can de facto be exercised.
Also, from their reply:
> The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”. This line is taught to every first-year English law student.
Why should parisians care? Why would France cooperate with enforcing such laws?
If POTUS orders that taking $50k in cash as a bribe is not to be prosecuted, then you won't be prosecuted.
In one of the more enlightened things Elon has done in the last few years, he fought back, and he won.
Interestingly, here in AU, there was a storm of media outrage at the time, saying all kinds of nasty things about Musk, making all kinds of assertions about how he was super arrogant and wrong to insist on upholding american's freedom of speech, with no attempt to justify why. It was almost like we were just expected to assume that AU law applies everywhere on earth.
Strangely, when the court order wasn't upheld because AU laws don't actually apply outside our country, and the gubmint that was so outraged and "ready to take him on" lost badly on every point, there was no huge storm of media coverage about that.
> "Services who choose to restrict access rather than protect UK users remain on our watchlist"
How does withdrawing service from UK users not "protect UK users"? How does age verifying UK IPs provide more protection than withdrawing the service entirely?
what happens if access is unrestricted from UK users and the content becomes available again. Reads to me that they will monitor sites to ensure this doesn't happen. Surely logical..
I think that because the UK speaks english, they’ve come to believe they somehow have similar levels of extraterritorial power as the US. Just a general symptom of way too many people consuming US media/political content.
That hyperbole is about the scale of the US military budget. The UK is nowhere close to the US in terms of its belief in "extraterritorial power". You are taking one instance and wildly just making things up
"The least bad thing that Ofcom and the Government could do is to quietly let the matter drop whilst focusing on education."
This generalises very well for all Government. Shame we're a couple of generations into education being about producing pliant workers over independent, thinking human beings.
> education being about producing pliant workers over independent, thinking human beings.
You cant have things like computers and smart phones if you dont have millions of pliant workers mass producing them for you. If you want the technological world that we live in to be possible then you should accept that it requires this concept. If everybody is a creative independant free thinking individual, then nobody is a worker drone in a factory churning out phones, laptops, or the materials and components that go into them.
Mass education was formed to destroy local cultures and languages in the prussian empire and revolutionary french to make sure people were compliant and wouldn't revolt against the state's control, it has never had anything to do with making people thinkers. This is the stated purpose, and always has been.
> consistent with the UK legal doctrine known as parliamentary supremacy, which holds that the UK Parliament has theoretically unlimited power
This is also true in Canada for the most part, while in theory with the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of the Constitution Act, 1982. This Act prescribes that “the Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada” (s.52), Thus constitutional supremacy replaced Parliamentary supremacy in Canada, in reality, the parliament can invoke s. 33 of the Charter, the notwithstanding clause, allows Parliament and the provincial legislatures to override certain provisions of the Charter, Canadian legislatures are still partially supreme. Which means the law can stand even if it violates those rights. This clause, which can only be used for a five-year term that is renewable, applies to specific sections of the Charter, including fundamental freedoms, legal rights, and equality rights, but not democratic, mobility, or Aboriginal rights.
I don't understand why the British government's solution is to impose orders on British ISPs as they have done with other websites that they want to block, rather than try to impose on a company based in another country.
Ofcom does know that they're dealing with 4chan, right?
Ultimately all of these sorts of regulations rely on people feeling the need to comply. 4chan feels no needs, least of all to comply.
It's the immovable object of online forums. It has not encountered a true unstoppable force. I doubt it ever will.
If they want it "gone" they'll have to both block it at the infrastructure level leading into the country and keep people from using internet infrastructure that isn't subject to these blocks from within the UK. That's... not really possible.
>The way we protect British kids from the Internet is to make better and more capable Britons, rather than to try and kidproof the entire internet.
If only it were that easy. For me as a parent, my approach is to implement a "Great personal firewall" - that is, internet restrictions that decrease over time as they mature, and starting with essentially zero access. Unfortunately, it's probably doomed to fail as other kids their age (5 + 7) and in their peer groups are already walking around with smartphones.
To put it bluntly, too many parents are too unenaged and lazy (or self-centered).
[+] [-] cosmicgadget|5 months ago|reply
> The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”. This line is taught to every first-year English law student.
Initially this seems like disrespect for another country's sovereignty. But really the crucial thing is:
> We explained to the UK that the Online Safety Act had a snowball’s chance in hell of being enforced in the United States
Ofcom has to go through the motions of telling 4chan they can't smoke in Paris because of the (very on-brand) nanny law.
[+] [-] tasuki|5 months ago|reply
I don't see anything wrong here: Sure, Ofcom can have the legal authority to regulate online safety worldwide. It's just that this... legal authority... isn't quite enforceable outside the UK jurisdiction. How unfortunate!
[+] [-] LordN00b|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] CaptainOfCoit|5 months ago|reply
It also continues like this:
> This does not mean that the Act extends to all use of in-scope services globally. […] “The duties extend only to the design, operation and use of the service in the UK and, for duties expressed to apply in relation to ‘users’, as it affects the UK users of the service”
Wouldn't this mean that the Act only applies to services explicitly design/targeting UK users/visitors? So if you're building a general service for no particular residents/citizens, the Act doesn't apply to you? Or am I misunderstanding something?
[+] [-] pavlov|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jojobas|5 months ago|reply
Kiwifarms stopped serving UK IPs, not because of fear of enforcement but rather because they don't anyone British jailed. The UK landing page straight up says 'use Tor'.
[+] [-] ivan_gammel|5 months ago|reply
It explicitly says that 7% of their users are coming from UK. If UK blocks them, they will loose noticeable part of advertising revenue. If there was no money at stake, they could just ignore Ofcom and sleep well. But they appear to be very agitated about the fact that they may loose their second biggest market.
Honestly, I don’t understand anyone on 4chan side here: they are de facto in UK jurisdiction because they earn money from that user base, so either they comply or they leave. All of this freedom-of-speech and US lawsuit hype is just a distraction circus.
[+] [-] topspin|5 months ago|reply
That appears to be the widely held understanding in this particular case.
I'm not so sure. This isn't a strictly black letter law matter. It probably should be, and I'd prefer that it was, but I see political angles to this.
Right now, it is improbable that Trump's DOJ has any interest in doing Ofcom's bidding in the US for UK "online safety" violations, real or imagined. But a world where the US DOJ might does exist. We're the political vectors aligned differently; say, for example, Ofcom was pursuing 4chan for "supporting" ISIS in the UK, I think few people would be surprised learn that Trump's DOJ was eager to "investigate," and perhaps synthesize some indictable offenses, and perhaps even extradite.
Have we not seen, and are we not seeing now, ample examples of similar abuses of power?
So I see much of the rhetoric, and also this lawyer's flippancy, as naïve. Given the optimal set of office holders and sufficient moral panic over some matter, Ofcom et al. could very well have real leverage in the US.
[+] [-] rbanffy|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] koliber|5 months ago|reply
And so they should, within the borders of the UK.
It's illegal to own unlicensed firearms in the UK. In the US, it is legal. UK authorities can prevent ownership of firearms in the UK via penalties, prevent firms from selling firearms in the UK, and set up import controls to prevent people from importing guns bought abroad. They cannot prevent foreign companies from selling firearms abroad.
Ofcom can institute penalties for UK consumers who access illegal content, prevent firms from providing such content on UK soil, and put up firewalls to prevent people from digitally importing such content into the UK. They cannot prevent foreign companies from providing such content.
Ofcom is being lazy and is trying to offload the responsibility to foreign firms.
Safety and liberty are often at odds. Let the UK decide the balance for their citizens and let their citizens bear the benefits and costs of implementing the measures.
[+] [-] rbanffy|5 months ago|reply
Said companies often find it less burdensome to comply than the option of being outright blocked from the market. Brazil did that a couple times with a couple different companies. If a company wants to provide services to a given jurisdiction, it needs to comply with local regulations.
[+] [-] grafmax|5 months ago|reply
We see these exact same mechanisms in the US and that’s precisely why we should not manufacture rationalizations for this kind of policy - the societal decline as a result of this cynical trend is clear.
[+] [-] potato3732842|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] flumpcakes|5 months ago|reply
In this example 4chan is 'importing' it's content to the UK. I agree though, Ofcom should just go straight to banning these websites that won't comply, rather than this silly and pointless song and dance. Ultimately that's the only real enforcement tool they have. For certain websites that will be enough (Facebook, etc.) for them to follow whatever law for the regions they want to be accessible in.
[+] [-] riazrizvi|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] SunshineTheCat|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Razengan|5 months ago|reply
Hell look at HN and literally anywhere. Everybody has their own "ideal" world.
I for instance don't want anybody talking shit about anime or video games ever.
[+] [-] kjellsbells|5 months ago|reply
s/civil servants/lawmakers/g
Civil servants didn't create, write, or pass the law. They simply got handed a flaming, bad smelling paper bag and got told to implement it.
[+] [-] cyanydeez|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] gchamonlive|5 months ago|reply
It's not a simple problem to solve, and it's not like having one problem is better than the other, because both devolve outside the boundaries of democracy.
[+] [-] downrightmike|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] flumpcakes|5 months ago|reply
The UK can make a law and apply it however they see fit. 4Chan is providing a service to UK people (a website you can access) and is not implementing the law. Ultimately the UK cannot enforce this law until money destined to/from 4Chan passes through the UK or people associated with the site visit UK territories.
In practicality this law for the most part will just mean either websites block the UK or UK ISPs are forced to block websites.
But this law was designed for the websites and platforms that will not be willing to do that as they make money off of UK citizens, such as Amazon/Facebook/Youtube/etc.
If a website blocks UK users then the law doesn't apply as it is only concerned with protecting UK citizens. If a foreign company was shipping drugs or guns to UK children, or your choice of obvious contraband, then why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable? This is how it has always worked and I am not seeing why this is a problem just because it's in the digital space.
[+] [-] estimator7292|5 months ago|reply
It is not the responsibility of foreign companies to enforce or even acknowledged the UK's laws. If the UK has a problem, they have tools to solve it on their own soil. If they want to enforce their laws they need to pay for it.
The UK is trying to bully and scare foreign website operators regardless of scale or type of business into paying to enforce UK laws outside of the UK.
If they want a website blocked, the only way to make that work is to block it and pay for it themselves.
[+] [-] HDThoreaun|5 months ago|reply
Literally because the entity is not under the jurisdiction of the UK. The UK can force domestic companies to block the website but they cant force the website itself to do anything. The claims of fines against 4chan are therefore nonsensical. Probably just part of the legal proceedings prior to blocking the site I guess but still strange to see.
[+] [-] knorker|5 months ago|reply
If I transmit insults of dear leader Kim Jung Un on amateur radio, then those radio waves will reach DPRK. I likely would be breaking DPRK law.
Why wouldn't they have the power? Same reason my decree that guns are now banned in the US is not even refuted, but ignored.
4chan has no obligation or even reason to even respond to the UK except as entertainment (this reply was entertaining), and to send a message to the US that (in its opinion) the US government cooperating with the UK on this would be illegal by US law, the only law that matters to the US legal system. Other countries laws only matter insofar as they are allowed by US law. Foreign laws will not get US constitution bypass unless the US constitution itself allows it.
It's as if DPRK demanded to have a US citizen extradited in order to be executed for blasphemy. All that US citizen cares about is to give a heads up to the US that "if these people come knocking, tell them to go fuck themselves".
What is the UK government going to do, send bobbies over to attack 4chan owners with nerve gas on US soil?
What's the alternative? I'm sure there are countries where it's illegal for women to show their faces on TV. Why wouldn't that country have the power to hold any website where women's faces are shown accountable?
On a more depressing note, as is super clear in the US lately, crime is perfectly legal, if your friend (or POTUS you bribed) orders you to not be prosecuted. Or pardons you for being a drug kingpin and mobster ordering murders of innocent people (Ross Ulbricht).
Power ultimately comes from the exercise of violence. The UK cannot exercise state violence on US soil. That's a US monopoly under very harsh penalty. On US soil only US law (or in the case of Trump, lawlessness) can de facto be exercised.
Also, from their reply:
> The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”. This line is taught to every first-year English law student.
Why should parisians care? Why would France cooperate with enforcing such laws?
If POTUS orders that taking $50k in cash as a bribe is not to be prosecuted, then you won't be prosecuted.
[+] [-] HPsquared|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] antisol|5 months ago|reply
In one of the more enlightened things Elon has done in the last few years, he fought back, and he won.
Interestingly, here in AU, there was a storm of media outrage at the time, saying all kinds of nasty things about Musk, making all kinds of assertions about how he was super arrogant and wrong to insist on upholding american's freedom of speech, with no attempt to justify why. It was almost like we were just expected to assume that AU law applies everywhere on earth.
Here's a fun sample of a totally unbiased article from the time: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-20/elon-musk-reacts-to-e...
Strangely, when the court order wasn't upheld because AU laws don't actually apply outside our country, and the gubmint that was so outraged and "ready to take him on" lost badly on every point, there was no huge storm of media coverage about that.
[+] [-] simmerup|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] 833|5 months ago|reply
> "Services who choose to restrict access rather than protect UK users remain on our watchlist"
How does withdrawing service from UK users not "protect UK users"? How does age verifying UK IPs provide more protection than withdrawing the service entirely?
It is about power and control, and nothing else.
[+] [-] maffyoo|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] FMecha|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] whimsicalism|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hexbin010|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lawlessone|5 months ago|reply
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-visa-polic...
[+] [-] epanchin|5 months ago|reply
That would seem to be least intrusive option.
Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.
[+] [-] paxiongmap|5 months ago|reply
This generalises very well for all Government. Shame we're a couple of generations into education being about producing pliant workers over independent, thinking human beings.
[+] [-] potato3732842|5 months ago|reply
The government shouldn't be dropping things. It should have the power to pick those things up in the first place.
It's like a fishing stop. Even if you get off with a warning the whole interaction just shouldn't have happened.
[+] [-] alt227|5 months ago|reply
You cant have things like computers and smart phones if you dont have millions of pliant workers mass producing them for you. If you want the technological world that we live in to be possible then you should accept that it requires this concept. If everybody is a creative independant free thinking individual, then nobody is a worker drone in a factory churning out phones, laptops, or the materials and components that go into them.
[+] [-] coolKid721|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dyauspitr|5 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tamimio|5 months ago|reply
> consistent with the UK legal doctrine known as parliamentary supremacy, which holds that the UK Parliament has theoretically unlimited power
This is also true in Canada for the most part, while in theory with the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of the Constitution Act, 1982. This Act prescribes that “the Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada” (s.52), Thus constitutional supremacy replaced Parliamentary supremacy in Canada, in reality, the parliament can invoke s. 33 of the Charter, the notwithstanding clause, allows Parliament and the provincial legislatures to override certain provisions of the Charter, Canadian legislatures are still partially supreme. Which means the law can stand even if it violates those rights. This clause, which can only be used for a five-year term that is renewable, applies to specific sections of the Charter, including fundamental freedoms, legal rights, and equality rights, but not democratic, mobility, or Aboriginal rights.
[+] [-] spuz|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] arresin|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ridruejo|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] johndhi|5 months ago|reply
1. Tell 4chan or its registrar l to take down .co.uk urls (maybe?)
2. Tell UK ISPs to ban UK visitors from viewing 4chan
[+] [-] lenerdenator|5 months ago|reply
Ultimately all of these sorts of regulations rely on people feeling the need to comply. 4chan feels no needs, least of all to comply.
It's the immovable object of online forums. It has not encountered a true unstoppable force. I doubt it ever will.
If they want it "gone" they'll have to both block it at the infrastructure level leading into the country and keep people from using internet infrastructure that isn't subject to these blocks from within the UK. That's... not really possible.
[+] [-] throw7|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cdfsdsadsa|5 months ago|reply
If only it were that easy. For me as a parent, my approach is to implement a "Great personal firewall" - that is, internet restrictions that decrease over time as they mature, and starting with essentially zero access. Unfortunately, it's probably doomed to fail as other kids their age (5 + 7) and in their peer groups are already walking around with smartphones.
To put it bluntly, too many parents are too unenaged and lazy (or self-centered).
[+] [-] drexlspivey|5 months ago|reply