this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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The part where they have any infrastructure, operations, revenue, or presence at all in the UK. They don’t, so the UK doesn’t have jurisdiction. This isn’t like the Apple stuff, where physical Apple products are being sold at retail in the EU/UK. UK residents are intentionally navigating to a website outside UK jurisdiction. If a UK resident goes to Mallorca on holiday, Spanish laws, not UK laws, apply because they’re in fucking Spain.
Also you should probably click that About page on the linked blog dude. Unless some American just randomly wound up at UCL in 1988 then graduated, stayed in the UK, and got a job at UCW Aberystwyth, you might want to rethink the random bullshit you’re spouting off as fact lol. By all means keep going off about how British ppl are “USians” and “US idiots” though.
I feel like I am missing something reading your comments, but it seems pretty clear to me that they do do business in the UK. They have users in the UK, to which they are providing a service (the 4chan message boards) in exchange for eyes on adverts placed on the page (from which 4chan makes money).
Just because this law is really stupid, and that 4chan does not have servers in the UK doesn't really matter. UK laws can still be enforced for individuals in the UK (which is expressly what is stated in the message from ofcom). Ofcom is not demanding that age verification is implemented for all users world wide, but for UK users. 4Chan can decide to not comply (which I think is good), but then it is not surprising that if you keep doing business in the UK (not blocking UK users/IPs) that fines (which 4chan will just ignore as they are not UK based) and possible bans on your service in the UK follow.
So as I understand it from conversations surrounding the USB-C stuff and other things the EU was trying to enforce on US headquartered companies, “doing business in” means the company has a registered subsidiary in that region, they have local payment processors, etc. So Meta does business in the EU or UK because they sell advertising space to businesses in those regions that target users in those regions, and the ad fees are paid to that local subsidiary through local payment processors.
I think we’re on the same page. Ofcom can’t force 4chan to do anything, because they don’t have jurisdiction over 4chan. They can’t force 4chan to implement age verification, or to implement geoblocks. They can issue fines if they feel like it, but they’re uncollectible.
So ultimately that’s what’s so ridiculous and goofy and annoying about all this shit. Ofcom is acting like foreign companies with no business operations in the UK are subject to its decisions. They are not. Ofcom should have never tried regulating entities it has no authority over, it just makes them look silly and naive.
The UK has every right to restrict their own residents access to things that are illegal internally. Just like how they have customs controls at their physical borders to prevent illegal physical items from being imported, they should have just blocked 4chan off the rip instead of trying to fine them.
Yeah, reading this I think we are indeed on the same page.
Do you understand how the Internet works? You don't have to have an infrastructure in a country to be present there.
USians need to get used to following the law. Shocking, I know.
Are you seriously trying to say that if you have a website, no matter where it's hosted and what you are hosting, you are subject to the laws of EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY that has internet access?
Here's a text picture of Muhammad lying down: O<--<
Are the admins of lemmy.world now subject to being put to death in Somalia? Under Somali law, that is blasphemy and punishable by death.
If you have users and derive income from a country, you are operating in this country. This is not a difficult concept as tech giants found out after EU fined multiple of them.
Yeah, I don't think you really understand how the internet works. Their presence is in the country where their servers are. People from the UK essentially go to another country to visit 4chan. If the UK doesn't like that the onus should be on them to block that access, but that is also a stupid idea thanks to VPNs.
Their income is derived from the UK users. They can either block the UK traffic (which they don't want as it would mean less money) or engage with the regulator regarding risk of illegal content they have been fined for:
Does the UK think they have jurisdiction over my server just because some twat from the UK visits my site? If so, there's a reason why we fought a war nearly 250 years ago that said that a stupid fucking idea. Colonialism is a dead ideology
Yes. You are providing services to the UK users and deriving income from these services.
Get used to it. Apple get fined by the EU multiple times, Microsoft and Google also, from memory, lost some cases in the EU despite lack of physical presence.
Apple also sells a physical product in the UK. Microsoft and Apple both sell a virtual service/product in the UK. 4chan only gets revenue from you looking at posters and clicking those posters on their website.
UK can get fucking bent. Come and take it.
I assure you this is what will happen. If 4chan won't pay the fine, they will be blocked in the UK by the Internet service providers (as this is the next step in the process). They will then see that non compliance with Ofcom decision is significantly more expensive than compliance.
How are they going to collect? Extradite to pay a fine? No theyre just going to block it and be done. The UK will never see one penny from 4chan imo, no mayter how much they beg
You’re deluded if you think the UK is going to get a cent from 4chan. The most they can do is direc their ISPs to block 4chan IPs but that wont stop people from tunneling to the site. Thats all they have the legal jurisdiction to do like it or not
4chan will probably end up paying the fine and engaging immediately when it is blocked in the UK as it will result in their top line getting hit. There is also an option of seizing the assets belonging to the company (not necessarily just in the the UK although probably not in the USA). You are deluded if you think otherwise.
It will end up the same as tech giants fines. They will shout, moan and pay.
I especially like this hysterical statement:
😂😂😂
How much money do you think 4chan gets from the UK? I promise it's not much.
Why would 4chan pay the fine? Its not like 4chan will take all that much of a hit because people can tunnel out and still participate in however 4chan monetizes if they really wanted to. Also lmao seize assets. 4chan has no assets in the UK to seize afaik.
This is the only real solution, and it's a inconvenient one at best to surfers thanks to solutions like VPN.
Can't stop the signal
It’s not ‘inconvenience at best’. The vast majority of people won’t use a VPN, so it will be a loss of revenue. Even if you are willing to pay for a VPN (or daft enough to use a free one), it’s an inconvenience as using a VPN can have side effects, such as other things getting blocked unexpectedly, or cause websites to redirect you to the local version in the country of your VPN server.
C'mon, it's 4chan we're talking about here. The gambit runs from "yes, that daft" to "good luck, I'm behind 7 proxies".
Admittedly you’re halfway decent as a troll. Got a few people.