> They’re definitely not treating it like a public safety matter, where they know how to reach us and know that I generally respond within the hour.
It's been exceedingly obvious but it's nice to know that Ofcom never thought that anyone would bother to fight back. This is clearly not about public safety but about controlling American corporations.
Parliamentary forces seem to be directly suborning this corruption.
The most frustrating part here is that this car crash of a policy had cross party support so there wasn’t even a way for UK people like me to vote against it.
Interesting that it's the existence of the suicide discussion forum that's too much to bare for the UK. Really drives home the point that in the state's eyes: your self, your body and ultimately your life, don't belong to you.
I don't really understand the concern. The UK objects to suicide forums and American operators of suicide forums are protected by the First Amendment of extradition to the UK. So if you want to operate a suicide forum from America, just don't travel to the UK and you're okay.
>If we concede even a scintilla of our constitutional rights, we fail.
based.
as someone from a country that had reached the bottom of many slippery slopes in less than ten years, it's very disheartening to see the West following us.
> The primary one is that the notion of a “UK based IP” is nonsense. Geolocation databases work by figuring out where people log in from and only after doing a lot of pattern recognition do those addresses get associated with that location.
I support the cause, but I don't think that's true. RIPE, the RIR responsible for UK, makes available a list of allocations per country. For UK:
the bravado makes for some great irony. worrying and feeling ultra-superior about the UK government, while letting the tiktok ban and forced sale go through unchallenged.
altogether, if you dont care about following this UK law, whats the need to carr what the UK government does? just dont go there or do business with people who care about the UK government. same as US sanctions and secondary sanctions. the UK at least is a small market
And as noted in other comments here he doesn't seem to understand how geo ip databases are maintained. I sure won't be asking this guy to represent me anytime soon.
So the story behind the title is that the UK gov claims that the IP block wasn't working? And the author agrees that IP blocks can't really work, even?
Separate from the free speech debate, the international law part of this seems pretty cut and dry. Here's the bolded parts:
So, it appears, as with 4chan, Ofcom has elected to proceed with a mock execution... Ofcom is trying to set the precedent that... you have to follow its rules – even if you’re American and you’re engaged in constitutionally protected speech and conduct. To that end, Ofcom has renewed its previous threats of fines, arrest, and imprisonment, against SaSu and its operators – all Americans.
Isn't that how laws work...? Like, it's illegal to be gay in some countries. Theoretically, those countries could open proceedings against every openly-gay person in the world, and try them in absentia. That would be evil and silly of course, but I don't understand what legal principle it would be violating?
More pointedly: what is this lawyer actually "representing" these "clients" for? I don't see any mention of any US legal action, and presumably you need to be british to represent people in UK court. Isn't this just activism, not representation?
The absolute confidence Ofcom has in its ability to impose laws on US citizens is kind of strange. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe in 2028 we get a president who is willing to let US citizens be extradited based on laws like this.
When content involves self-harm or illegal activity, the discussion isn’t just about geolocation, it’s about platform responsibility, user safety, and effective remediation. Striking the balance between free expression and preventing real harm is why platforms use content policy teams, abuse reporting, and multidisciplinary responses (moderation + outreach + law enforcement where warranted).
We're aggressively blocking UK IPs before we even have our product ready, neither our website nor our software will work for visitors from the UK, our ToS will prohibit use of our software for UK residents, and we will not sell or offer the software in the UK. Ofcom would have to put a lot of effort to circumvent these measures to even know we exist.
In a nutshell, I'm moderately confident that this will suffice to keep Ofcom away.
You shouldn't even be expected to geoblock. If I'm operating a Web site in country A, I should not have to care about country B's laws unless I am taking specific action intended to attract users in country B in particular. That's doesn't mean just to target the whole world, either. If you don't want your citizens to access something in another country, take it up with your citizens.
It was obvious from the minute that idiots started creating IP location databases in the first place that people would demand that they be used like that... and those demands seem to be winning out.
> Ultimately, what Ofcom is doing here is the perfect modern-day lesson lesson for why the First Amendment exists in the first place
The First Amendment was created to protect against foreign governments impeding on your speech?
I feel like that's really missing the point of what this amendment is about, at a time when the First Amendment is at greatest threat from the current US government.
Isn’t compliance just as easy as asking where the visitor is from (or more specifically if they are from or in the UK), perhaps even just once per IP they visit the site from? Yes, they may lie, but that’s their problem not the site operator’s.
IDK but I'm more concerned with the principle that a foreign government is claiming to have jurisdiction far beyond its borders, especially on a matter which is considered a fundamental human right in the United States.
So the author repeats that the SaSu site was geoblocked but simultaneously note that all UK are idiots that don't realise a geoblock is imperfect and claim...
>The UK regulator has now publicly confirmed that the “mirror” site for my client’s site is not accessible in the UK.
The writer then proceeds to describe the way in which the spinning up of a mirror lead to the site becoming available for people in the UK. And the author protests that:
>The reasons why SaSu had a mirror are SaSu’s alone/none of Ofcom’s fucking business; [...]
The way it is written makes for a string suspicion that SaSu thought they could obviate OSA with a cheeky mirror (standard fare for torrent sites - who also wish to bypass censorship - I gather) and got caught. I can't see why else the author would be so vociferous, nor how the mirror wouldn't block the very same UK addresses as the main-site except by design.
Suicide is illegal here (there is movement on this, thankfully). Helping people do illegal things, also illegal. Facilitating such help, also illegal. There seems no need to stoop to imagining some weird conspiracy or blaming a cabal of shadowy figures.
I guess you could think of it like we treat helping people kill themselves like USA treats UK people facilitating copyright infringement.
52 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 45.1 ms ] threadIt's been exceedingly obvious but it's nice to know that Ofcom never thought that anyone would bother to fight back. This is clearly not about public safety but about controlling American corporations.
Parliamentary forces seem to be directly suborning this corruption.
based.
as someone from a country that had reached the bottom of many slippery slopes in less than ten years, it's very disheartening to see the West following us.
I support the cause, but I don't think that's true. RIPE, the RIR responsible for UK, makes available a list of allocations per country. For UK:
These are actual per-country allocations, not interpolations from access patterns.altogether, if you dont care about following this UK law, whats the need to carr what the UK government does? just dont go there or do business with people who care about the UK government. same as US sanctions and secondary sanctions. the UK at least is a small market
By testing from.. a single VPN IP?
And as noted in other comments here he doesn't seem to understand how geo ip databases are maintained. I sure won't be asking this guy to represent me anytime soon.
Separate from the free speech debate, the international law part of this seems pretty cut and dry. Here's the bolded parts:
Isn't that how laws work...? Like, it's illegal to be gay in some countries. Theoretically, those countries could open proceedings against every openly-gay person in the world, and try them in absentia. That would be evil and silly of course, but I don't understand what legal principle it would be violating?More pointedly: what is this lawyer actually "representing" these "clients" for? I don't see any mention of any US legal action, and presumably you need to be british to represent people in UK court. Isn't this just activism, not representation?
In a nutshell, I'm moderately confident that this will suffice to keep Ofcom away.
It was obvious from the minute that idiots started creating IP location databases in the first place that people would demand that they be used like that... and those demands seem to be winning out.
The First Amendment was created to protect against foreign governments impeding on your speech?
I feel like that's really missing the point of what this amendment is about, at a time when the First Amendment is at greatest threat from the current US government.
You're perfectly free to run these websites from the US. We just exercise our right to block these at our UK shores.
Where's the problem?
>The UK regulator has now publicly confirmed that the “mirror” site for my client’s site is not accessible in the UK.
The writer then proceeds to describe the way in which the spinning up of a mirror lead to the site becoming available for people in the UK. And the author protests that:
>The reasons why SaSu had a mirror are SaSu’s alone/none of Ofcom’s fucking business; [...]
The way it is written makes for a string suspicion that SaSu thought they could obviate OSA with a cheeky mirror (standard fare for torrent sites - who also wish to bypass censorship - I gather) and got caught. I can't see why else the author would be so vociferous, nor how the mirror wouldn't block the very same UK addresses as the main-site except by design.
Suicide is illegal here (there is movement on this, thankfully). Helping people do illegal things, also illegal. Facilitating such help, also illegal. There seems no need to stoop to imagining some weird conspiracy or blaming a cabal of shadowy figures.
I guess you could think of it like we treat helping people kill themselves like USA treats UK people facilitating copyright infringement.