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

The write-up from the lawyers is unintentionally hilarious

1. 4chan actually lost its case in the US District Court on 15 September 2026. (sauce: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-court-dismisses-...

The judge dismissed its lawsuit against Ofcom for lack of jurisdiction, because Ofcom was protected by foreign sovereign immunity.

2. The judge's comments were obiter dicta observations that were not necessary to decide the case, rather than a binding ruling that Ofcom's actions were unconstitutional, making the headline somewhat selective, it's hardly the defeat of a giant regulatory system. Still, I suppose he needs to show he did something to earn his fees.

We could go on and on and fucking on about American double standards here:

Cuba. ABC being hassled over Jimmy Kimmel making gags about Kirk. The White House restricting reporting. Ending support for public broadcasting. Book bans, the CLOUD act, the TIKTOK DIVESTITURE fercrissakes. Sanctions on the ICC.

>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?

Yes this is exactly what they thought, and no it is not surprising. Section 204 of the Online Safety Act of 2023 specifically says the Act covers internet services provided from outside the UK as well.

Of course the rest of us think its stupid. But the UK government doesnt.

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.

> Indeed. Who could have predicted this?

Not European politicians.

You see, in the EU international treaties supersede individual countries' constitutions in theory. This is the other way the EU is moving power to executive governments away from parliament and judicial branches.

Of course, in practice, you have at least a good chance that courts just ignore it (of course the laws of many European countries are a good match, the big thing you get many conflicts about is if 2 governments act on the same company/crime/...). Then the EU court makes a counter judgement ... and is ignored, despite the law. Which is one of the reasons you keep reading the EU is about to fall apart.

Well, my reading of this is Ofcom did not lose overall and 4chan technically lost the lawsuit despite Ofcom having no way to enforce fines. I don't think Ofcom's purpose was ever to collect the fines either. Now keep in mind, 4chan is the first website that had ever been issued a fine by Ofcom under the UK's Online Safety Act. I think that is interesting because it's a noteworthy site which suggests the selection of it was more targeted. Note that is my speculation.

4chan sued Ofcom over the fines. Ofcom has been perhaps waiting for the outcome of this suit and is announcing they can't collect fines but I don't think that was the purpose. They have the power to instruct ISPs to block domains and to me it seems more likely that is what they will do and that was perhaps what they wanted from the beginning.

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 am surprised that https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/4102 was not cited.

It's not just that courts generally decline. It's now also against US law for them to enforce the judgment without assessing the Constitutional issues. And the burden of proof is on those trying to enforce the judgment.

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.

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.

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.

> Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all?

Didn't the USA kidnap a president from another country from that country, just the other day?

The other option (and this is I admit charitable) is that this was always obviously never going to work and this was all a performative political thing in the first place.

By deliberately going after unwinnable cases, there is perhaps here a deliberate attempt to project a "voice of common sense" - effectively demonstrating that this is uneforceable nonsense, regardless of what the then-current government and media insisted. So they make a big show of it being defeated in the hope that the powers that be seen sense and quietly drop it.

Or they really are delusional. I dunno.

> 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.

> 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.

It’s largely political. Even the rank and file staff there agree that it’s nonsense, being done for appearances.