This was such a weird case. Usually when a country goes after a foreign business they enforce it by imposing restrictions within their own borders and threatening the operators with legal action if they ever enter the country. If the operators don’t visit the country and their banking doesn’t cross a business that must follow those laws (which is hard), it’s otherwise symbolic.
I may be reading too much into the editorialized writeups about Ofcom but even their statements imply they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
This quote from the court is amazing:
> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution
Indeed. Who could have predicted this?
Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all? Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates? Are they using this as a demonstration of why internet censorship is the only solution? It’s hard to imagine why they thought they were going to get anywhere with this case, unless failing was the goal
While Ofcom were barmy to even try this there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't, and somewhere that will have contributed to supporting the effort to do this.
While the US isn't perfect it is also far from the worst conceivable entity to be in that position (and current UK and Australian governments provide easy examples). If they want to use their influence to promote free speech then good, because we need it. Just less of the mass surveillance of absolutely everyone at the same time, then we'd be good.
> there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't
In my comment I explained how countries, including the US, project their laws by imposing controls within their jurisdiction.
The weird part about this case is how they thought they could directly project their laws into another country in a way that overrides that country’s constitution, and they expected the other country to override their own constitution in agreement.
That’s not the same. This was something weirder, which is why there is speculation that it was designed to fail as a demonstration.
That's exactly what the US do though. We recently saw server seizures in Amsterdam, there is the US Cloud act and so on.
The US fundamentally disagrees with other countries on the limits of their own jurisdiction to include basically anything tangentially related to the US.
Again, I am far from anti-US but any outsider can see this for what it is: a one way street.
Was this in violation of the Netherlands constitution or just not explicitly illegal in Amsterdam? I don’t know the details or the incident you’re referencing, but there is generally a distinction.
I actually wouldn’t have been shocked if other countries had helped, and the powers that be may regret enforcing their sovereignty here.
Countries used to enforce this at their borders (for foreign information) because it largely worked. They couldn’t stop 100% of the copies of the book, but they could stop there being enough copies for it to be part of the cultural zeitgeist (most of the time).
Not anymore. The companies don’t have a local HQ to harass, and the information doesn’t flow through infrastructure the government owns. They’ve pretty much entirely lost the ability to control the flow of information, and they’ve largely lost the ability to control its direction either with the fall of major news outlets.
I don’t think they have the support for a China-style great firewall, but I’m not British so maybe I’m wrong.
I think it’s a good thing information is set free, but I see why they tried it. It’s the only politically tenable way they had to try to keep that control.
It's about honor, I remember Saddam Hussein saying that after they held against the US for 40 days they "won" the war, because in their culture when a higher power entity goes against a weaker one, it is without honor and the weaker entity "wins" honor by being able to defend for that long.
I would expect that they expected to not be able to enforce it. It's a play to get the british public on board with even more draconian surveillance state laws and technologies which will be needed to protect their children from evil american companies.
Maybe they weren't allowed to not try? Like adding Denuvo to your game doesn't stop piracy, but your investors will be angry if you don't make the (wasted) effort at due diligence.
Those toolkits don’t stop piracy - they slow it down long enough to make the first 2 weeks (days) of sales. The people using them usually understand that.
Yes, but the point that the motivation for taking these actions isn't for them to be effective, but to satisfy performative requirements imposed by external parties.
Exactly. Ofcom understood it needed a dog and pony show to answer the latest UK moral panic over 4chan. The headlines have moved on, and they can safely take off their costumes.
> they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
Indian citizens living in India, who have never left India and only do business with Indian entities, have to declare compliance with US laws (FATCA) when opening a bank account in India with an Indian bank. This is enforced by the Indian government.
The difference is that Britain is not a super power and has not been for a long time. There is only China and the US. All other western nations and many eastern ones are shells of what they once were.
This is just laying down the ground work for Russia-style deep packet inspection. “We don’t have a capability to censor the foreign internet, so we need measures to cut off the violating sites from our side”
deep packet inspection is not really necessary, headers contain information about the destination, as long as you don’t encrypt those, there is no need to do any decryption.
You just need to follow this to the logical conclusion. They’ll ban using your proposed method, people will switch to VPN and other modern methods and to combat people still accessing the forbidden internet they will need DPI and TSPU-like devices
(I didn’t want to put the Sky News link first because I figured you would complain about the source. There are probably better sources for the same event if you look around.)
They are rapidly increasing defense spending and discussing how to prepare the public for possible wartime scenarios. I don’t know what else to tell you.
“Militarization” can also mean a rapid buildup of forces and the transition of society onto a war footing.
We're probably at the weakest point in our history militarily, with few recruits coming in. People in government saying they are "going to have" conversations about war with the public (FYI, UK would be behind most other countries on this, many already have done in last 5 years) is very different to "militarization" in any way that would relate to this 4Chan decision, it's not even "we are actually doing something".
I think both the UK and France have had nuclear weapons programs since the 50s and 60s. Are you thinking about the "Northwood declaration" ? Where they both said they would coordinate their nuclear responses?
This fits quite neatly with Dominic Cummings' comments to the House of Lords Constitutional Committee[0] about how the British Civil Service can't do anything because no one with any talent wants to work there.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBBYvj4YQLE (full video is an hour and a half, but you can skip to any bit because he just makes the same handful of points over and over again)
Think of the kids the world we failed to protect by not having passport checks and government snitch at the 4chan login.
But don’t worry! We will check your passport when you open your phone (already live in the UK, efforts supported by the GBP 2M secret donation of Meta to NGOs).
And what’s the worst thing that could happen? No one would for sure arrest you for being critical of a foreign government.
does this mean the UK will block 4chan in the UK? if the defense is jurisdictional then 4chan can continue to serve US users, but there would be no recourse if the UK blocks it in their jurisdiction
This was such a weird case. Usually when a country goes after a foreign business they enforce it by imposing restrictions within their own borders and threatening the operators with legal action if they ever enter the country. If the operators don’t visit the country and their banking doesn’t cross a business that must follow those laws (which is hard), it’s otherwise symbolic.
I may be reading too much into the editorialized writeups about Ofcom but even their statements imply they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
This quote from the court is amazing:
> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution
Indeed. Who could have predicted this?
Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all? Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates? Are they using this as a demonstration of why internet censorship is the only solution? It’s hard to imagine why they thought they were going to get anywhere with this case, unless failing was the goal
While Ofcom were barmy to even try this there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't, and somewhere that will have contributed to supporting the effort to do this.
While the US isn't perfect it is also far from the worst conceivable entity to be in that position (and current UK and Australian governments provide easy examples). If they want to use their influence to promote free speech then good, because we need it. Just less of the mass surveillance of absolutely everyone at the same time, then we'd be good.
> there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't
In my comment I explained how countries, including the US, project their laws by imposing controls within their jurisdiction.
The weird part about this case is how they thought they could directly project their laws into another country in a way that overrides that country’s constitution, and they expected the other country to override their own constitution in agreement.
That’s not the same. This was something weirder, which is why there is speculation that it was designed to fail as a demonstration.
That's exactly what the US do though. We recently saw server seizures in Amsterdam, there is the US Cloud act and so on.
The US fundamentally disagrees with other countries on the limits of their own jurisdiction to include basically anything tangentially related to the US.
Again, I am far from anti-US but any outsider can see this for what it is: a one way street.
Was this in violation of the Netherlands constitution or just not explicitly illegal in Amsterdam? I don’t know the details or the incident you’re referencing, but there is generally a distinction.
The US also has laws imposing restrictions on institutions outside their borders/jurisdiction. FATCA for example.
As a US citizen, I'm inclined to agree.
I actually wouldn’t have been shocked if other countries had helped, and the powers that be may regret enforcing their sovereignty here.
Countries used to enforce this at their borders (for foreign information) because it largely worked. They couldn’t stop 100% of the copies of the book, but they could stop there being enough copies for it to be part of the cultural zeitgeist (most of the time).
Not anymore. The companies don’t have a local HQ to harass, and the information doesn’t flow through infrastructure the government owns. They’ve pretty much entirely lost the ability to control the flow of information, and they’ve largely lost the ability to control its direction either with the fall of major news outlets.
I don’t think they have the support for a China-style great firewall, but I’m not British so maybe I’m wrong.
I think it’s a good thing information is set free, but I see why they tried it. It’s the only politically tenable way they had to try to keep that control.
It's about honor, I remember Saddam Hussein saying that after they held against the US for 40 days they "won" the war, because in their culture when a higher power entity goes against a weaker one, it is without honor and the weaker entity "wins" honor by being able to defend for that long.
That's not unique to their culture. Remember The Alamo? That was 190 years ago and we still celebrate our defeat.
I would expect that they expected to not be able to enforce it. It's a play to get the british public on board with even more draconian surveillance state laws and technologies which will be needed to protect their children from evil american companies.
Maybe they weren't allowed to not try? Like adding Denuvo to your game doesn't stop piracy, but your investors will be angry if you don't make the (wasted) effort at due diligence.
Those toolkits don’t stop piracy - they slow it down long enough to make the first 2 weeks (days) of sales. The people using them usually understand that.
Yes, but the point that the motivation for taking these actions isn't for them to be effective, but to satisfy performative requirements imposed by external parties.
> Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates
When something can be explained by both incompetence and conspiracy, the correct explanation is usually incompetence.
It’s largely political. Even the rank and file staff there agree that it’s nonsense, being done for appearances.
Exactly. Ofcom understood it needed a dog and pony show to answer the latest UK moral panic over 4chan. The headlines have moved on, and they can safely take off their costumes.
> they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
Indian citizens living in India, who have never left India and only do business with Indian entities, have to declare compliance with US laws (FATCA) when opening a bank account in India with an Indian bank. This is enforced by the Indian government.
The difference is that Britain is not a super power and has not been for a long time. There is only China and the US. All other western nations and many eastern ones are shells of what they once were.
This is just laying down the ground work for Russia-style deep packet inspection. “We don’t have a capability to censor the foreign internet, so we need measures to cut off the violating sites from our side”
deep packet inspection is not really necessary, headers contain information about the destination, as long as you don’t encrypt those, there is no need to do any decryption.
You just need to follow this to the logical conclusion. They’ll ban using your proposed method, people will switch to VPN and other modern methods and to combat people still accessing the forbidden internet they will need DPI and TSPU-like devices
Likely yes IMO, especially since the UK is making moves to militarize.
I hate to break it to you, but the UK has had a military for some time now.
That’s an obvious misreading of what I said, so you’re either a fool or you’re playing one. Why don’t you pick up a paper sometime.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqnlxr43zdo
And that was a year ago. 4 days ago: https://news.sky.com/story/army-chief-says-politicians-to-st...
(I didn’t want to put the Sky News link first because I figured you would complain about the source. There are probably better sources for the same event if you look around.)
They are rapidly increasing defense spending and discussing how to prepare the public for possible wartime scenarios. I don’t know what else to tell you.
“Militarization” can also mean a rapid buildup of forces and the transition of society onto a war footing.
We're probably at the weakest point in our history militarily, with few recruits coming in. People in government saying they are "going to have" conversations about war with the public (FYI, UK would be behind most other countries on this, many already have done in last 5 years) is very different to "militarization" in any way that would relate to this 4Chan decision, it's not even "we are actually doing something".
So has France, but their nuclear weapons program is new.
I don’t think it’s weird to point out the little guys (especially former or current EU) getting strapped.
I think both the UK and France have had nuclear weapons programs since the 50s and 60s. Are you thinking about the "Northwood declaration" ? Where they both said they would coordinate their nuclear responses?
The first nuclear weapon tests for the UK and France were in 1952 and 1960, respectively. Nothing about that is new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
This fits quite neatly with Dominic Cummings' comments to the House of Lords Constitutional Committee[0] about how the British Civil Service can't do anything because no one with any talent wants to work there.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBBYvj4YQLE (full video is an hour and a half, but you can skip to any bit because he just makes the same handful of points over and over again)
Think of the kids the world we failed to protect by not having passport checks and government snitch at the 4chan login.
But don’t worry! We will check your passport when you open your phone (already live in the UK, efforts supported by the GBP 2M secret donation of Meta to NGOs).
And what’s the worst thing that could happen? No one would for sure arrest you for being critical of a foreign government.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action...
When European governments say they will lead in technology regulation, this is what they mean.
It's annoying, in the UK you can browse 4chan but not Imgur
does this mean the UK will block 4chan in the UK? if the defense is jurisdictional then 4chan can continue to serve US users, but there would be no recourse if the UK blocks it in their jurisdiction
The UK ISPs already did this earlier. What Ofcom really wanted is to flex their muscle and kill 4chan because it represents Satan for them.
What Ofcom wants next is to make VPNs illegal.
cognitively slow, highly regarded ofcom
> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution
Good grief. This is sad stuff.
What else should happen in this case?