I have no idea how precedence works in the UK. If they lose, is that a huge issue, or could a more legitimate service sue oater and realistically win if the verdict hinges on Kiwifarms being Kiwifarms?
OK so basically if they lose, the law will just stay in place. There is an example of a (less controversial and) more major site going to court against the OSA and losing.
They cannot divulge the identities of it’s contributors because some of them come from regimes where if the authorities knew who they were, they’d get killed.
They do not have the money and resources.
Considering they are an encyclopedia, maybe they shouldn’t be subject to this because they aren’t a porn or social site (although their search feature means they are subject to the OSA).
The court basically ruled on the side of Ofcom (the UK’s version of the FCC who were arguing against Wikipedia) but said to Ofcom that they should consider exceptions for Wikipedia considering their position as the Prime Encyclopedia on the internet. Whether OfCom will take that on board is a whole other thing.
I also don’t see how they could win because what they could say “If you cannot comply, Geoblock”, and on top of that I think Kiwifarms or 4chan, the former hosting members who tried to commit offenses under the terrorist act against a Northern Irish Streamer, or 4chan, a site that is the source for a lot of far right ideologies that lead to terror attacks, would get a fair hearing over this. Like this is a bit like if a far left group tried to fight KOSA in the US. If Kiwifarms and 4chan win this it would be both a major shock to the system and basically the government pinning their colours to the post in favour of the far right while stopping things like tweets about palestine or access to educational resources on sensitive subjects.
Also, the main argument put forward to pass the OSA was basically target sites like 4chan and Kiwifarms (even though we know now it doesn’t just target those sites, but also all social media, blogs, search engines…). The bill does cover…
Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide.
Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of deliberate self-injury.
Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an eating disorder or behaviours associated with an eating disorder.
Abusive content against the characteristics of Race, Religion, Sex, Sexual orentation, disability, or Gender Reassignment.
Content that incites hate for the above
Content that encourages, promotes, or provides instructions for acts against a person.
Bullying content.
Content encouraging stunts.
All of which are things 4chan and Kiwifarms are notorious for. So basically it’s like if the KKK challenges the UK government against the Terrorist act because it covers them.
However the question they are putting forward is that “Since we’re not in the UK, we should not be beholden to UK laws”, which is a little bit of a problem because, say, if someone from the Netherlands accesses a childporn site hosted in Canada, it doesn’t matter if someone in the Netherlands is not beholden to the laws of Canada, they can still be arrested for kiddyporn. Just because you are in one country and you are using a service in another doesn’t mean you can’t be arrested.
The OSA puts all the onus on instituting the law on the service provider, which I’m not sure if that is due to absolute arrogance of how the internet works (people in the Lords didn’t even know what a VPN was) or something more Machiavellian (forcing medium to small sites to give money to companies MPs and Lords and their allies have invested in).
I think the ruling would be something like “no, it still applies, we wrote it specifially for sites like you, you can either age-gate or Geoblock the UK, your move.”
But yeah, the OSA is a stupid fucking law that doesn’t work in any sense and is being used to censor everything from Wikipedia to fucking shitposters in the name of the children. Any law that requires fining people in other jurisdictions isn’t going to fucking work.
I have no idea how precedence works in the UK.
So what you need to understand about the UK is that Parliament is Sovereign. We don’t have a balance of power like with the US with the President, Courts and Congress.
Our version of 1776 was 1649, when England beheaded Charles the First. After the restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the line was that Parliament called all the shots, not the Monarch, Prime Minister or the Courts. It’s why the 13 colonies were all “no taxation without representation”, because they knew this.
Anyway, The Supreme Court of the UK can strike down a law if it goes against another law. For example, during Brexit, Brexiteers argued that the Referendum alone meant that the UK can just leave the UK, but because the UK joined the EU through an act of parliament, they had to go through parliament. This led to a major newspaper calling judges “Enemies of the People” for (checks notes) following the law, but my point still stands.
Do I think KiwiChan/4Farms can overturn or make an exception to the law? No, especially since they are literally the boogiemen the government hold up as the reason for the law. What I do think will happen is that they will be told “comply, geoblock the UK or we’ll block you”. Ofcom blocking a site that isn’t a CSAM would defo be a step in the wrong direction and a dangerous president, but I also suspect 4chan and Kiwifarms would do something like promote VPNs or something, but they don’t need to do that because VPN use is sky high right now.
tl;dr: The OSA doesn’t break any other law afaik, and this law was basically designed to target places like 4chan and KiwiFarms. They’re not going to win this, Even Wikipedia didn’t win their case, and the courts are just going to say something like “Age-gate, Geoblock, or GTFO”.
My assumption is if they win it would be a snowball effect of other such non-uk based sites suing for non compliance to UK regulation. This wouldn’t be of great use for sites that operate in the UK as well as other countries and target UK demographic in a commercial manner.
I have no idea how precedence works in the UK. If they lose, is that a huge issue, or could a more legitimate service sue oater and realistically win if the verdict hinges on Kiwifarms being Kiwifarms?
OK so basically if they lose, the law will just stay in place. There is an example of a (less controversial and) more major site going to court against the OSA and losing.
The Wikimedia Foundation recently lost a case against Ofcom placing them in the highest level of regulation based on how many people from the UK visit Wikipedia. Basically Wikipedia tried to argue that the following:
The court basically ruled on the side of Ofcom (the UK’s version of the FCC who were arguing against Wikipedia) but said to Ofcom that they should consider exceptions for Wikipedia considering their position as the Prime Encyclopedia on the internet. Whether OfCom will take that on board is a whole other thing.
I also don’t see how they could win because what they could say “If you cannot comply, Geoblock”, and on top of that I think Kiwifarms or 4chan, the former hosting members who tried to commit offenses under the terrorist act against a Northern Irish Streamer, or 4chan, a site that is the source for a lot of far right ideologies that lead to terror attacks, would get a fair hearing over this. Like this is a bit like if a far left group tried to fight KOSA in the US. If Kiwifarms and 4chan win this it would be both a major shock to the system and basically the government pinning their colours to the post in favour of the far right while stopping things like tweets about palestine or access to educational resources on sensitive subjects.
Also, the main argument put forward to pass the OSA was basically target sites like 4chan and Kiwifarms (even though we know now it doesn’t just target those sites, but also all social media, blogs, search engines…). The bill does cover…
All of which are things 4chan and Kiwifarms are notorious for. So basically it’s like if the KKK challenges the UK government against the Terrorist act because it covers them.
However the question they are putting forward is that “Since we’re not in the UK, we should not be beholden to UK laws”, which is a little bit of a problem because, say, if someone from the Netherlands accesses a childporn site hosted in Canada, it doesn’t matter if someone in the Netherlands is not beholden to the laws of Canada, they can still be arrested for kiddyporn. Just because you are in one country and you are using a service in another doesn’t mean you can’t be arrested.
The OSA puts all the onus on instituting the law on the service provider, which I’m not sure if that is due to absolute arrogance of how the internet works (people in the Lords didn’t even know what a VPN was) or something more Machiavellian (forcing medium to small sites to give money to companies MPs and Lords and their allies have invested in).
I think the ruling would be something like “no, it still applies, we wrote it specifially for sites like you, you can either age-gate or Geoblock the UK, your move.”
But yeah, the OSA is a stupid fucking law that doesn’t work in any sense and is being used to censor everything from Wikipedia to fucking shitposters in the name of the children. Any law that requires fining people in other jurisdictions isn’t going to fucking work.
So what you need to understand about the UK is that Parliament is Sovereign. We don’t have a balance of power like with the US with the President, Courts and Congress.
Our version of 1776 was 1649, when England beheaded Charles the First. After the restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the line was that Parliament called all the shots, not the Monarch, Prime Minister or the Courts. It’s why the 13 colonies were all “no taxation without representation”, because they knew this.
Anyway, The Supreme Court of the UK can strike down a law if it goes against another law. For example, during Brexit, Brexiteers argued that the Referendum alone meant that the UK can just leave the UK, but because the UK joined the EU through an act of parliament, they had to go through parliament. This led to a major newspaper calling judges “Enemies of the People” for (checks notes) following the law, but my point still stands.
Do I think KiwiChan/4Farms can overturn or make an exception to the law? No, especially since they are literally the boogiemen the government hold up as the reason for the law. What I do think will happen is that they will be told “comply, geoblock the UK or we’ll block you”. Ofcom blocking a site that isn’t a CSAM would defo be a step in the wrong direction and a dangerous president, but I also suspect 4chan and Kiwifarms would do something like promote VPNs or something, but they don’t need to do that because VPN use is sky high right now.
tl;dr: The OSA doesn’t break any other law afaik, and this law was basically designed to target places like 4chan and KiwiFarms. They’re not going to win this, Even Wikipedia didn’t win their case, and the courts are just going to say something like “Age-gate, Geoblock, or GTFO”.
Thank you for such a detailed and helpful reply!
My assumption is if they win it would be a snowball effect of other such non-uk based sites suing for non compliance to UK regulation. This wouldn’t be of great use for sites that operate in the UK as well as other countries and target UK demographic in a commercial manner.