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| ▲ | oliwarner 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But if a Brit comes to your country and buys cocaine from you, in person, you wouldn't expect to be convicted as a dealer in the UK. Ofcom has a bad handle on web requests. Clients connect out. 4chan et al aren't pushing their services in anyone in the UK. | | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If we want to base the argument on technical nuance, 4chan are sending their packets to the U.K. just as the cocaine dealer would be sending packets (of cocaine) to their buyers in the U.K. | | |
| ▲ | oliwarner 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They're replying to an externally-established connection. The packets they're sending are going to a local router. If you posted cocaine from your cocaine-legal country to an address where it was illegal, and you followed all the regular customs labelling rules, I'm not sure you should be liable. And you shouldn't be extradited either. Even the UK demands that extradition offences would have been criminal had they been committed in the UK. Now I'm sure in practice, you'd find yourself in trouble immediately but I don't think it's fair. The ramifications of laws like this is everyone needs to be Geo-IP check every request, adhere to every local law. It's not the Internet we signed up for. | |
| ▲ | Ajedi32 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This isn't a physical product. A better analogy would be a phone call, initiated by someone in the UK to a foreign country. | | |
| ▲ | strideashort 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What if I send http request over snail mail? And they send me back printed http/html response? Is it “different” then? Being serious here. | | |
| ▲ | saaaaaam 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think (but am not sure) that there are long established postal laws in most territories about sending “obscene” material through the mail. I think this was used to prosecute pornography publishers in earlier times. BUT you needed to (a) intercept mail and (b) have a good reason and (c) get a warrant to open (interfere with) that mail. Possessing pornography was a separate issue which may or may not be allowed. Typically (I think) authorities went after publishers not consumers - because they were easier targets to pin down. Which would seem to imply that if you’re sending encrypted traffic at the request of a recipient the as a publisher of “obscene” material then unless you are delivering very clearly illegal content to a user then you should not prosecuted. I haven’t got a single source for anything I’m saying, so I might be entirely wrong - I’m simply going off half-remembered barely-facts. So please do argue with me! |
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| ▲ | estimator7292 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The user mails you a box with a note that says "1kg of 4chan packets pls", and a prepaid return label to an address local to you. You put the packets in the box and kick it down the street to its "destination". Job done as far as you know. The place you sent the box then repacks it and mails it to the UK. Somehow the UK thinks that you and only you have broken the law. | | | |
| ▲ | tyho 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 4chan send their packets to their ISP, not the UK. | | |
| ▲ | 2postsperday 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think this holds up, at least not with the "kids toys" example. Aliexpress only sends the toys to the Fedx or whatever shipping partners UK uses. | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The destination of the packet where it is sent, just as a toy sent from the U.S. to a customer in the U.K. is sent to the U.K. rather than the local Fedex store. | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | strideashort 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | not at all, 4chan only sends packets to their isp! |
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| ▲ | otherme123 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is easier than that: in Germany for example swastikas are forbidden. But they don't prosecute or fine web pages served in other countries. Or books for that matter. In some countries communist symbology is prohibited, yet they don't fine US web pages for having them. And don't forget the Great Firewall: China blocks pages, and get along with some webs to tune what they serve. But you can publish Tiananmen massacre images in your european hosted web, and they don't fine you: it is their problem to limit access, and they understand it. | | |
| ▲ | wrongwrong111 15 minutes ago | parent [-] | | This isn't strictly true, major magazines like Der Spiegel can use it for 'satire' or some such nonsense, it's basically at the whim of those in power as CJ Hopkins learned, his satirical use resulted in him being perversely punished, but state aligned magazines get a pass. EU doesn't believe in human rights or freedoms. |
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| ▲ | mattmanser 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not so clear cut though is it. For example, does 4chan use a CDN? And is that CDN on UK/EU soil, serving this content? Therefore they're actually transacting that business on UK/EU soil. Didn't the US use this argument to prosecute and extradite the Mega founder? I wonder if the UK/EU will reverse uno the US's stance and start extraditions on US CEOs. | | |
| ▲ | ronsor 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US would likely not process those extraditions, and it would make trade and international relations worse for no real benefit. | | |
| ▲ | jimnotgym 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Whereas the US are very happy to demand extradition when the shoe is on the other foot. | |
| ▲ | mattmanser 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Like random tariffs? Imagine this scenario, a major G7 country declares: All bytes sent to a computer on their soil count as a transaction on their soil. And the end client being on a VPN is not a defence UNLESS the website owner attempts to verify the user's identity. Immediately have to pay local taxes, conform to local laws. Unless you keep all your assets in the US and never fly abroad, our shady website operator is exposing them self to real risk of being snatched by police somewhere or having their assets seized. The only thing stopping that from happening is the trade agreements the Americans have put in place, the very trade agreements everyone's now looking at and thinking 'what are these really worth?'. Yeah, it's fantasy and it won't happend but it could. The internet is not free, it runs on sufferance of a bunch of governments and some, like China, already lock it down. The more America, who probably gains the most from it right now, plays with fire, the more risk something like this crazy scenario happens. Another more plausible scenario is countries simply start repealing safe harbor laws. End of YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/etc. in those countries overnight. | | |
| ▲ | ronsor 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is basically a mutually assured destruction scenario. The US is not going to let all US companies get fined out of retaliation, so there would be more retaliation from the US against the EU, and everyone else. In the end everyone loses, except for China, which as you mentioned is not stupid enough to play these games and decided to simply pick a lane. China locks down the Internet and blocks foreign players (to varying levels of success). They don't reach overseas to prosecute foreign executives or fine Meta for not removing Party-critical content from Facebook. Of all the parties that could be involved in this censorship drama, China is somehow the most honest. | | | |
| ▲ | buzer 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Another more plausible scenario is countries simply start repealing safe harbor laws. It already happened via GDPR to some degree. CJEU ruled in December that platforms can qualify as controllers for personal data published in user-generated advertisement. The given reasoning was basically that the platform determined the means and the purposes of the processing. Due to that they can be liable for article 82 damages. |
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| ▲ | jimnotgym an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Howard Marx was arrested in Spain and extradited to the US on RICO charges by the DEA for something like this. It seemed like extraterritorial action by the US when I read about it. But US=Good and Europe=Bad on hn | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus an hour ago | parent [-] | | > But US=Good and Europe=Bad on hn LOL, classic. Everyone thinks they are the one being picked on. Plenty of people would argue that what you say here is actually the polar opposite of what happens on HN. |
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| ▲ | DevKoala 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That sounds so gross. Why do British people tolerate that?
It’s as if British people belong to their government. | | |
| ▲ | michaelt 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The people who think incest porn should be banned are loud and proud in their beliefs. They’ll put up posters, tell their MPs, respond to surveys, and appear in political debates. The people who support incest porn are a lot less talkative. As such our windsock government with no strong beliefs does what the survey says is most popular. | | |
| ▲ | gzread 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Interesting - There was once a movement in Germany to criminalise bestiality, and the opposition to this movement were vocal enough to hold street marches for the right to fuck dogs. https://www.webpronews.com/zoophiles-march-on-berlin-to-dema... | |
| ▲ | LAC-Tech 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The people who think incest porn should be banned are loud and proud in their beliefs. They’ll put up posters, tell their MPs, respond to surveys, and appear in political debates. The people who support incest porn are a lot less talkative. I think there is an argument to made the pornography in general is harmful. But to single out one single type of porn strikes me as... very odd. Maybe politicians can list, explicitly, all the other porn genres they find acceptable or agreeable to them, as a kind of compare and contrast exercise. | | |
| ▲ | michaelt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I chose incest because https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/pornography-sexual-relationshi... > So-called "barely legal" pornography and content depicting sexual relationships between step-relatives are set to be banned amid efforts to regulate intimate image sharing. > Peers agreed by a majority of one to ban videos and images depicting relationships that would not be allowed in real life. > They also agreed by 142 votes to 140, majority two, to bring intimate pictures and videos of adults pretending to be children in line with similar images of real children. There's actually a 200+ page government review of pornography https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/creating-a-safer-... | |
| ▲ | jimnotgym 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I guess you have to draw a line somewhere, if you are going to legislate against porn you are going to have to decide what is and what is not ok | | |
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| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The same principles apply around the world. The U.S. recently invaded a sovereign nation and abducted its democratically elected leader because that leader was ostensibly involved in shipping cocaine to the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_interventio... | | |
| ▲ | anvuong 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Saying Maduro was democratically elected was too rich. | |
| ▲ | drnick1 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So what? The only reason the U.S. did this is because it can. What will the UK do when 4chan tells its online regulator to go suck a d***, send in James Bond? | |
| ▲ | ImJamal 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Maduro was not legitimately and democratically elected. | | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Potato potato. No less legitimate than Trump. | | |
| ▲ | ImJamal 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trump was validly elected. He won the required number of electors in the electoral college in the 2016 and 2024 elections. Maduro on the other hand... | | |
| ▲ | markdown 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Didn't Trump admit that Musk fixed it for him? | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The only election for the president that matters is the electoral college. What the citizens are voting on is a referendum to choose the electors (and in some states it is not binding). You might try to argue that the referendum was rigged somehow, but rigging the electoral college voting is even less plausible. | |
| ▲ | ImJamal an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Trump was talking about how Elon campaigned for him for a month in Pennsylvania and said he knows all about the voting counting machines in Pennsylvania. Even if Musk did something in Pennsylvania, Trump still would have won the electoral college vote. I think the good faith argument is that Musk confirmed they were secure so that the election wasn't stolen from Trump. But frankly Musk is too much of an idiot to steal an election or make sure it is secure so I don't know how to take it... |
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| ▲ | LAC-Tech 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This argument is tiresome. You can be against freespeech restrictions in Britain and the 2024 Trump Administrations braindead military and foreign policy. If I attack either, I am not taking the people in the countries whose politicians make the decisions. |
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| ▲ | anigbrowl 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s as if British people belong to their government. Legally speaking, British people are subjects, not citizens. | | | |
| ▲ | NullPrefix 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The term is called "Subject of The Crown" |
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| ▲ | miohtama 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But are you allowed to post pictures of your cocaine on a website that is not in the UK? | | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're even allowed to post photos of your cocaine on U.K. websites! | | |
| ▲ | miohtama 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It depends. If it causes anxiety to someone, it is illegal. Pictures of drugs could fall into this category. > Current law allows for restrictions on threatening or abusive words or behaviour intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace, sending another any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingd... | | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't wish to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to defend U.K. laws so I'll keep this short. You're being intellectually dishonest. That page does not back up your assertion. You have said "If it causes anxiety to someone, it is illegal" but the page says "intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" which has a different meaning. | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is a meaningless standard since anyone can claim they were alarmed or distressed and there's no way to invalidate such a subjective claim. I can say I'm alarmed by your comment, does that mean it's valid for Ofcom to fine you? | | |
| ▲ | 3rodents 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Again, that's not what the law states. The law is not broken when someone is alarmed or distressed by a comment. The law is broken if you post something that is "likely or intending to" which is not judged by the victim. If you walk into a police station in England and tell them that this comment on Hacker News alarmed and distressed you, it doesn't matter, it is up to the legal system to judge my intent, i.e: whether my comment was "likely to" or "intending to" cause alarm and distress. Whether you agree with the law or not, it is important to be accurate when discussing it. The U.S. vs. U.K. (not) free speech law discussion online so often seems to frame them as fundamentally different, but they are on the same spectrum. The go-to example of the limits of free speech in context of the U.S. legal system is "Shouting fire in a crowded theater". The U.K. laws are the same in principle but a little further along the spectrum. | | |
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's a horrific law. Criticizing certain religions and institutions are likely to offend many people. Criticizing a politician or criminal or bureaucrat is quite likely to cause distress to them and their supporters. > The go-to example of the limits of free speech in context of the U.S. legal system is "Shouting fire in a crowded theater". The U.K. laws are the same in principle but a little further along the spectrum. They are completely different in principle. The principle in the US is preventing the inciting of violence or a situation that could cause physical injury to others. In the UK it has become about protecting feelings of people who could just choose to not read, listen, or get themselves worked up about it. |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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