UK Govt vs 4Chan USA

[Rev.Cambeul]

Britain's media regulator, Ofcom, has issued a £20,000 ($26,644) fine to the U.S.-based internet forum 4chan for failing to provide information about the risk of illegal content on its platform. This is the first penalty issued under the new online safety regime in the UK.

Ofcom's fine comes after 4chan did not respond to requests for a copy of its illegal harms risk assessment and a second request relating to its qualifying worldwide revenue. The regulator has also imposed a daily penalty of £100, which will increase for each day that 4chan does not comply, up to a maximum of 60 days or until the information is provided.

This action marks a significant step in the enforcement of the UK's Online Safety Act, which requires online service providers to assess and mitigate the risk of illegal content on their platforms. 4chan, known for its often controversial and unmoderated content, has been a focal point in the debate over online safety and free speech.

UK Govt: "You can't say that."

4Chan: "Fuck off. We're not subject to your laws."
              "U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!"

Video from https://www.youtube.com/@CountDankula2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5lsVCFmTGI

If any government agents are looking to try the same with Creativity, don't bother me. I (@Rev.Cambeul) am just the web designer. Creativity is operated out of the United States of America and complies with all U.S. laws. Got any problems with anything on creativityalliance.com? Take it up with Reverend John Adams, J.D., LL.B.

Care of PO Box 2443 Orland Park, Illinois U.S.A. 60462

See also https://creativityalliance.com/forum/announcements/australia-vs-america-legal-moral-responsibilities-of-leading-creators

[Rev.Cambeul]

Ofcom says it can fine any company in the world and they must comply ...
Here's the reality.

Video from https://www.youtube.com/@BlackBeltBarrister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uTUODApE88

Read the case: https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/16/the-ofcom-files

Posted on October 16, 2025 by prestonbyrne
A document dump exposing the UK's attempt to destroy the First Amendment.
Below is relevant enforcement correspondence sent by the UK Office of Communications, known by the Orwellian portmanteau "Ofcom," to my client, 4chan, in relation to its Online Safety Act fines, disclosed publicly in the interests of transparency, and because the First Amendment allows it. Civil rights are like non-rollover vacation days: use 'em or lose 'em.

I represent 4chan, pro bono, in its U.S. federal lawsuit against Ofcom, together with my co-counsel Ron Coleman.

4chan operates its business entirely lawfully in the United States with exactly zero regulatory paperwork required. Zero as in none. All of the paperwork called for in these letters is what the UK expects every Internet company in the world that hasn't geo-blocked the entire island to maintain and file. Every demand, it expects everyone to comply with.

Every threat and penalty – including threats of multi-year prison terms – contained in these letters pertains to speech and conduct which is constitutionally protected in the United States.

The UK wants to make operating a publishing platform as complicated, from a regulatory perspective, as running a complex financial institution like a bank. With requirements as insane as these, it is no surprise that the country's tech industry is anemic.

In these documents, in particular the fining decision issued on Monday, October 13th, 2025, the UK's Internet regulator claims that its powers have supremacy over the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment, and U.S. law for U.S. companies and citizens engaged in constitutionally protected speech and conduct occurring exclusively on U.S. soil.

More at Source.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said to President Trump and Vice-President Vance, to their faces at the White House, that the UK would not use its sovereign power to censor Americans.

In Sir Keir's words:

"Certainly we wouldn't want to reach across (to censor) U.S. citizens, and we don't."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUkCulwzhMs

Excerpt from Source: I've been trying to convince the U.S. government for ten months that the UK and foreign censors have no respect for the First Amendment, and are out to destroy it, and Ofcom just came out and said it, more or less. Saved me from having to write a long memo, so, thanks, I guess.

Ofcom's assertion that UK rules hold sway on US turf is laughable. It is, however, also entirely consistent with the UK legal doctrine known as parliamentary supremacy, which holds that the UK Parliament has theoretically unlimited power. The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that "if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence".

This line is taught to every first-year English law student, and presumably is part of the kernel for most of the UK government's legal strategists on that side of the pond.

Absurd or not, that's the rule. This means that the UK could enact a law that says that the entire world has to genuinely believe that 2+2 = 5 or that the Moon is made of cheese and every man, woman, and child in the entire world would, again theoretically, have to obey it. It could also pass a law, as it has in the form of the Online Safety Act 2023, that says its censorship codes apply in the United States and override the U.S. Constitution, and its censorship agency has the power to enforce those codes in America.

This overreaction from the UK's communications regulator, directed towards my client, has happened for one reason, and one only: Ofcom asked an American company to explain its constitutionally protected conduct, and that American company, in the lawful and proper exercise of its constitutional rights, refused.

The First Amendment means Americans don't need a permission slip to speak to anyone, anywhere in the world. It means official censors have no say in what Americans host. And it means the UK, whose rule Americans overthrew in a revolution 250 years ago, doesn't get a say either.

The U.S. Constitution expressly protects every American from the due-process-free mandatory disclosure of confidential internal documents about First Amendment protected activity, especially without a judicial warrant (Fourth Amendment). It also doesn't require Americans to waive our constitutional right of self-incrimination (also the Fifth Amendment), which this correspondence purports to do.

Vice-President Vance went to give talks about free speech at the Munich Security Conference and in Paris. The Europeans ignored him. The State Department complained, and the UK ignored it. President Trump warned the UK to not censor Americans, and the UK ignored – and arguably lied to – him.

The UK is not going to listen to reason until America forces it to. The time for talking is over. America must fight this politically, and we must fight it now.

American legislators would do well to remember that the UK's censorship law is not called the "4chan Safety Act" – it is called the "Online Safety Act." 4chan is a politically controversial company and an easy early target. But it will not be the UK's only target, it is merely the first.

The UK can do whatever they want on their little island. 4chan is American, and by virtue of that fact alone, 4chan shouldn't have to deal with this bullshit. No American citizen or corporation should.

<a href="https://prestonbyrne.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Second-Notice-2-1.pdf" target="_blank">https://prestonbyrne.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Second-Notice-2-1.pdf</a>
This page is just an excerpt. There is much more at the source.
https://prestonbyrne.com/2025/10/16/the-ofcom-files