Very Wrong Score

🇬🇧|🇮🇳 Keeping score of sports, politics, space and computing to roast people. I don't care what you think of my retweets.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

Lawyer doesn’t seem to understand that maximising friction is the aim, not 100% compliance, and enforcement is done by ISPs not the govt, and this very system has already been very successful in blocking torrents, to the point that except for small cohort, most of the population does not bother.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

This is getting a bit absurd.

Everything above is still based on the fact that it can be seen in the UK and Ofcom is pretty clear, VPN or no-VPN does not matter. A judge would not care if VPN was used or not, a judge would only care if it became visible in the UK or not.

I'll put it simply again, in the UK, UK laws will need to be followed, US laws, whilst very similar, do not hold any weight.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

Pretty sure Ofcom knows that the US audience is not their domain.

See how Reddit has done this: they have NSFW sub reddits, and in the UK they force mandatory age verification before you can see them, pretty sure no one in the US see those. Ofcom will not be asking Reddit if this has been implemented in the US, they only care about the UK.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

Exactly, so if they do get blocked, then they by their own logic, they will not be able to use the US courts to get themselves unblocked in the UK.

My argument is not about "censorship" or "fines", it's that fact that they think US laws apply in the UK.

Funny you mention Truth Social, because that is on the list of apps to be banned for under 16s (but this is not related to the point I'm trying to make)

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@nobdy_imp @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC In no universe will Meta allow it to reach that point.

4chan on the other hand lives for this kind of stuff and, I think, incorrectly feels that US first amendment rights somehow apply in the UK

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@EatThatLetter @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC They will not, especially if they can't reach it, no teenager is going to buy VPN subscriptions.

It'll just become one other site that is out of reach and that would mean that the block worked.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@ds9trek @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC Fines are the step before a full block. There is no need for 4chan to pay and am pretty sure the UK govt. understands that they can't apply their opinion world wide. It gets them the attention before the action. 4chan is fully accessible at the moment in the UK.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

There is no way a US Congress can repeal sovereign immunity, and say, even if they did, that would mean the UK could get sued in the US for not selling chlorinated chicken, their argument would be "we approved it in the US, your agency didn't for silly reasons, no sovereign immunity, we sue"

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

Countries will not bother with censorship, they will just "block" when they find that websites originating in another country do not comply with their laws. My point is not about censorship at all, it's about how law applies.

Which is why I find 4chans argument a bit a thick, they might be fine per US law, but that doesn't mean that's ok in the UK (I'm not making a point about censorship, just how law works). By their own logic, if Ofcom did indeed end up getting them blocked in the UK, they won't be able to sue Ofcom in the US to get it unblocked in the UK.

Their "first amendment" argument is fine in the US but that cannot be applied in a blanket way on the UK either, and that's what I was trying to highlight.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@EatThatLetter @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC You might not know this but Ofcom not only gets sites blocked in UK but it also uses High Court Orders to enforce it with ISPs.

A fine is one step before a UK wide block.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@ds9trek @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC and AI would reply, that is the case

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

You and I have basically said the exact same thing
"Said countries can make demands and offer incentives and punishments but ultimately it's up to them to block the site if they don't comply."

I ended with "....blocked in the UK" not "....blocked in the US" or "....blocked globally"

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@SashaRibobshkiy @TheManDocSmurf @shivanisharmaaa @LBC @Connor_HandLBC Is that your face, might want to get back on your meds again. Logic is too difficult for your kind.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

There is nothing the UK can do block anything in the US, and that you are absolutely right on.

The UKs jurisdiction is only to the UK.
Websites like Reddit have adapted by providing different experiences based on geography. You will never see a UK mandated age verification in the US will you ?

Basically, the UK is saying, if you want users from the UK viewing your content, then comply with our laws, otherwise risk getting blocked.

With regard to the fines, 4chan absolutely don’t need to pay them, but if they ever want to do business in the UK or want to IPO, this will become a significant blocker. Non-compliance is a whole different can of worms and it spreads fast, and that’s the real leverage of the fine, not the monetary value alone.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

I’m not debating censorship mate, I’m only pointing out how they understand the law applies to them in the UK is wrong.

Basically, they can keep sending whatever they want to send, Ofcom can still block them, and if they do then for them to get unblocked they’ll have to come to the UK courts.

The same argument that they are using right now, will prevent them from suing Ofcom in the US to get unblocked in the UK.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

In law it wouldn’t matter if 4chan made money in the UK or not, commercials don’t have any impact on application of law, and yes there will be sites that do not comply. UK ISPs block torrents all the time, they are required to by law, but can they block all of them, the answer is no, do the torrent websites make money from ads in the UK, nearly always no.

It’s as simple as this, once the regulator identifies a website, and they are found to be non-compliant, then fines follow with the worst possible outcome of becoming region blocked.

Like I said in my first post, they’ll most likely end up getting blocked.

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

When the porn sites had to do age verification for the UK, all of them complied, or faced the same fines and losing the market. Even Reddit does age verification in the UK before showing NSFW.

Pretty sure none of them have servers in the UK or data hosted here. Exact same laws are being used.

This is exactly how the internet works 😀

[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

Lewis Lewis Lewis
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[Very Wrong Score @verywrongscore]

@WG_RumblePants I’m being honest here, the system around him would have squashed it even before it reached him and that would have been miles better than this “drip-fed-media-leaks” thing going on.