Ofcom has published a somewhat redacted version of its confirmation decision, imposing a £950,000 penalty on the overseas provider of an "online suicide discussion forum":
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@neil Interesting how they didn't redact the rude words...
I wonder if it's now possible to find sites like this by searching for "blocked UK Ofcom Online Safety Act"...
... yes, that allows me to discover the site in question. It has a page for UK users with the text shown in the Ofcom decision document.
The discussion of geoblocking, and promotion of VPNs, is worth reading in its own right.
@neil Complicated!
To summarize, I think that Ofcom is arguing that UK users can access the site without a VPN if they had previously registered an account by using a VPN during the registration process.
Which is not that exciting because UK users can still access the site using a VPN (or TOR). As Ofcom know.
Will the site owners pay Ofcom's fine? I suspect their response will be very similar to 4Chan's.
@neil so… now geoblocking is not enough. I might as well not bother then, if that’s not enough to save you from the British Inquisition then why even attempt any sort of compliance? I geoblocked UK users from my silly furry porn game because it felt like the safest option, I may just remove that now. Sounds as though if they hate you enough they will simply bend the rules to find a way to target you.
The nub of the dispute is somewhat amusingly mirrored in paragraph 5.11:
> Ofcom’s decision whether to issue this Confirmation Decision is governed by UK law. The First Amendment is not part of UK law and accordingly is immaterial.
The site provider's argument is, in essence, that, being a US-based operation, it is governed by US law. The OSA is not part of USA law and according is immaterial.
5.41 indicates that, in Ofcom's view, merely reading a website makes someone a "user" for the purposes of the OSA:
> It is not necessary to register to use the service. ... individuals in the UK could access [redacted] through search engines and/or by inputting the website addresses directly into web browsers, whether they were registered or unregistered users.
@neil to state the obvious: a company running a website cannot guarantee to obey the laws of every country of everyone reading it, because those laws might be contradictory. regional carve-outs like that for swasticas in germany become unworkable when they have to be applied everwhere.
@neil Ooh, that's a challenge for people running a Mastodon instance.
Though non-registered users can't use DMs, so it's probably OK.
@neil hmm, does that make all the AI bots that agressively scrape everything online "users"? 😉
@neil Oh look another penalty that will never be paid..
This is all performative. Even if in this case they probably have a point..
