Full text:
"BYRNE & STORM, P.C.
ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
Re: Statement Regarding Ofcom's Reported Provisional Notice - 4chan Community Support LLC
Byrne & Storm, P.C. ( @ByrneStorm ) and Coleman Law, P.C. ( @RonColeman ) represent 4chan Community Support LLC ("4chan").
According to press reports, the U.K. Office of Communications ("Ofcom") has issued a provisional notice under the Online Safety Act alleging a contravention by 4chan and indicating an intention to impose a penalty of £20,000, plus daily penalties thereafter.
4chan is a United States company, incorporated in Delaware, with no establishment, assets, or operations in the United Kingdom. Any attempt to impose or enforce a penalty against 4chan will be resisted in U.S. federal court.
American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an e-mail. Under settled principles of U.S. law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes.
If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in U.S. federal court to confirm these principles.
United States federal authorities have been briefed on this matter.
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was reportedly warned by the White House to cease targeting Americans with U.K. censorship codes (according to reporting in the Telegraph on July 30th).
Despite these warnings, Ofcom continues its illegal campaign of harassment against American technology firms. A political solution to this matter is urgently required and that solution must come from the highest levels of American government.
We call on the Trump Administration to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers available to the United States to protect American companies from extraterritorial censorship mandates.
Our client reserves all rights."
(There was a worrisome blog post someone shared here on HN a few weeks ago.)
In short, the UK can kick rocks.
If they were going to write anything at all, how about "I fart in your general direction"?
If I get a speeding ticket in the mail from another state I've never been to, I'm not going to ignore it, I'm going to explain to the court why it's invalid. Ignoring legal notices, even from other jurisdictions than one's own, is generally unwise (with some exceptions). So is responding with insults instead of concrete legal justification for why this is inapplicable.
It will kill whatever is left of small independent communities on the internet, and it's a disaster for free speech.
> TikTok Inc., which offers the TikTok app in the United States, is incorporated in California and Delaware, and is subject to U.S. laws and regulations governing privacy and data security.
Seems likely. And then that won't work, and they'll tell ISPs to block VPN traffic too.
Surveillance is inevitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Opposit...
Now, there are other less inspiring examples (e.g. SESTA/FOSTA)! and this didn't somehow form a durable political consensus (or an entrenched legal principle), but people looking at this issue in advance would have thought, and did think, that obviously this legislation would pass. And then it didn't.
If I access 4chan only through tor, will I be safe from these tirants?
If they can be used in the UK, then the same general principle applies here as with pirate radio and over-the-horizon artillery.
The attempt is unlikely to work, but with Trump who knows, so they will probably indeed tell ISPs to block it.
UK has limited enforcement options, of course, but it’s their sovereign right to prevent illegal activities and/or punish for them within their capabilities. This is why 4chan lawyers are asking for political response as if UK were a rogue American colony.
Their reaction puts on record the constitutional/legal barriers, preserves strategic optionality, and possibly preempts escalation that could still cause real headaches. It's strategic, not a sign that they actually think the UK has a case.
What sanction methods are you thinking of that could get to US citizens on US soil without US governmental consent?
2. Using broader spectrum of law enforcement options if those citizens arrive in the UK
No, I don’t care what Pakistan thinks of me. But I've been to the UK, and I'll probably go there again. I live my life according to American law, without regard for UK law, but if UK law enforcement publicly announced an investigation of me, I'd find legal representation and respond. (Remotely.)
Even today NordVPN is in the #5 spot, above Uber and Google.
4chan is showing ads on their site, but if your idea had any grounds, the issue would be with the ad network, not 4chan.
While that'd be a pretty bad legal precedent too, it'd at least be coherent.
More realistically, 4chan will likely be banned by UK ISPs after a court ruling.
The previous mail was likely just to move the process forward to show they have no interest in following the UK law.
It's hard to understand the logic of this statement. Why the ad network? 4chan business is to show ads to users while offering them a platform for conversations. What 3rd party service do they use is irrelevant unless that is by coincidence an UK company.
>More realistically, 4chan will likely be banned by UK ISPs after a court ruling.
This is exactly what my comment above means.
This is absolutely common practice happening everywhere. There is a firewall in every country. Think of malware servers that America blocks.
Reminder not to take any kind of legal advice from HN.
No, seriously, what's your point? That for a G7 government interfering with interests of American companies outside of US jurisdiction it is somehow a problem?
You know that first amendment of the thing you say nobody cares about. A fundamental human right people are giving up in the UK so they can be “protected” from big bad ol 4chan. What a joke…
Using a pass allows posting from VPN (and posting without a pass is really annoying last I checked, as the anti-spam measure are quite insistent).
So if you were posting previously (with a pass) then nothing has changed.
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/stlouis/press-releases/200...
Is one of my favorite examples to point to but there are countless others besides.
Who did that?
Edit: I agree with you, just don’t understand why did you choose to reply to that part of my comment.