https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...

The response from Ofcom doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

If you are to sell a toy in the UK you must be a British company. (and must pay VAT and comply with British safety standards).

If a consumer buys from overseas and imports a product then they do not have British consumer protections. Which is why so much aliexpress electrical stuff is dangerous (expecially USB chargers) yet it continues to be legally imported.

Just, no british retailer would be allowed to carry it without getting a fine.

>However, a lawyer representing the company - which has previously said it won't pay such fines - has responded to the demand with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster.

>The latest image is not the first picture of a hamster lawyers for 4chan have sent in reply to Ofcom

amazing. same energy as the pirate bay telling dreamworks to sodomize themselves. i cant help but laugh at the absurdness of it.

Germany tried earlier to fine American companies for online posts using a law called "NetzDG".

Gab refused to pay the fine, and it was over.

> The enforcement notice itself highlights the structural tension. Despite acknowledging Gab’s US address, the German government asserts authority to pursue collection, including formal enforcement proceedings, without identifying any German subsidiary or office.

> The payment instructions route funds directly to the German federal treasury, showing that the action is punitive rather than remedial.

> Germany’s approach also reveals the paper trail behind modern censorship enforcement. The fine stems not from a specific post or statement, but from alleged failure to comply with aspects of NetzDG. That procedural hook enables broader regulatory reach, transforming administrative requirements into a mechanism for speech governance.

https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-refuses-to-pay-germanys-fine-c...

> "Companies – wherever they're based – are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," she said.

So the UK plans to fine Parisian bars that serve alcohol to British under-18s in France on holiday?

The letter sent by the lawyer in response: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HDwtXYaWAAA-u0l?format=jpg&name=...

If it wasn't for 4Chan, we might never have solved the Haruhi problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpermutation#Lower_bounds,...

I used to go on a curated version of 4Chan via Telegram. Yes there is a lot of racism (although it flies in every direction, between every ethnicity you could imagine) but there is also (due to the anonymous nature) some genuinely interesting discussions. I remember one thread about aircraft carriers being of no use being debated by US and UK submarine officers.

There are also some genuinely funny bits. There was a guy in Greece who had found out that as long as he never graduated, he could live a basic life for free at university. His nickname was Dormogenes.

Getting flashbacks to the letters the Pirate Bay used to send lawyers

https://www.scribd.com/document/117922444/the-pirate-bay-res...

I'm pretty sure in one they responded saying their lawyer was alseep in a ditch and would reply when he woke up lol

It would be marvelous if they used a drawing of a spider.

https://27bslash6.com/overdue.html

Let kids go to 4chan. I frequented it and turned out fine.

Meanwhile Google.com shows all manner of depravity if you click “safe search: off”.

I realize there’s a carve out in the legislation for search engines but if the goal is to stop little Timmy finding pictures of an X being Yd up the Z then it is a resolute failure.

The only thing that works with children is transparency and accountability, be that the school firewall or a ban on screen use in secret.

”screens where I can see ‘em!”

This is all just theatre to justify a ban right?

> Last month Pornhub restricted access to its website in the UK, blaming the introduction of stricter age checks, and said its traffic had fallen by 77%.

assumedly the rate of consumption hasn't dramatically changed, so the OSA's immediate result has been either the decentralisation of porn providers (towards those small enough to dodge the law for now and be less exacting) or the mass adoption of proxies; I assume the former is the path of least resistance

this is notably the opposite of the feared outcome (which I suspect may be closer to the long-term effect) that the bar to meet the requirements would be so high (possibly involving hiring a lawyer) that smaller social/porn sites get regulated out of existence (see ie. https://lobste.rs/s/ukosa1/uk_users_lobsters_needs_your_help...)

It does seem like if the UK wants to do content filtration (blocking noncompliant websites) they will need to own up to it and set up a China-style firewall, rather than hoping they can badger the service providers into doing it for them.

Related:

Ofcom has today fined 4chan £450k for not having age checks in place

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47442838

People used to tell kids to not go to a shady part of town while they spent their afternoons outside unsupervised. Can parents not tell kids to not go to certain websites? We still went to the shady part of town and the kids will still go to 4chan but at least we don't need to give away freedoms. Such erosion of freedom for the common person because parents can't have an awkward conversation is irritating.

There's always people that say it's the parents responsibility to monitor their kids. But as a parent, you either give your kids full access to the internet or nothing. The fault lies with the OS companies Google, Microsoft, Apple. They do a terrible job with parental controls. They make it very hard to setup, they're confusing and hard to use plus they barely work. I think they just do it as a checkbox for marketing or regulatory purposes. That's where I'd like to see regulation.

a lawyer representing the company - which has previously said it won't pay such fines - has responded to the demand with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster.

"As they should"

The unpaywalled version on AOL https://www.aol.com/articles/us-messageboard-4chan-mocks-520...

You mean the message board that collab-ed with Epstein? Delete them from the internet.

Europeans are following the wrong path on regulating the internet. Instead of calling it internet safety and annoy people, they should just make those services and the people running them liable for the damages.

The same goes for the freedom of speech. Europeans should make it legal guarantee instead of trying to build walls around speech. So when X or 4Chan etc deletes a post, it may lead to freedom of speech fines if deletion wasn't justified. Tha same for the algorithm, if a post that doesn't break the rules is discriminated by the algorithm, a hefty fine should apply.

Suddenly we will have companies that keep their business clean and no claim for moral high ground.