Comment on 4chan has been fined $758,223.20 by OFCOM.

artyom@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  For backstory check this BBC link (notice the date). In a nutshell:

  • UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) demands 4chan to comply with UK’s Online Safety Act.
  • 4chan refuses because it’s hosted in USA, it has no assets in UK, and acc. to its lawyer (Preston Byrne, the guy from the tweets) it broke no law in USA.
  • Ofcom insists. And fines 4chan. And expects 4chan to pay the fine.
  • Ofcom asks “where’s the payment?”. Byrne answers it with the picture of an oversized hamster, clearly mocking the entity.

  Present time: Ofcom is trying again. Byrne sends it even more pictures of oversized hamsters.

  source

  • artyom@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Thank you. Why are they bothering? Do they think they can just intimidate orgs into compliance?

    source

    • lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I don’t know. My guesses are:

      1. Ofcom’s system is automated and/or byzantine, so it sends those intimidatory notices regardless of being hopeless or not.
      2. Ofcom doesn’t know 4chan won’t pay shit.
      3. Ofcom knows 4chan won’t pay shit, but it’s doing this circus to show 4chan is not co-operating with UK law, so there are grounds to demand British ISPs to block it.
      4. Some decision maker in Ofcom is worried about losing face if they back off.

      If any of those is true, I have no idea.

      source

      • stsquad@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        It’s 3.

        source