Comment by EarlKing

Comment by EarlKing 3 hours ago

1 reply

> To put it another way, if 4chan blocked the UK, the UK would be fine with this outcome.

They really wouldn't, otherwise they would've done that already since it is well within their power to command ISPs to blackhole any offending website. That they chose to levy fines instead tells me all I need to know about their true intentions.

ben_w 3 hours ago

I believe the order of escalation here is:

1) Identify non-compliance or risk

2) officially request information from the website

3) wait for reply

4) formal enforcement proceedings: a fine and prep for court action (they are here)

5) convince a court to order the site to be blocked

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...

Note that they themselves say there:

  Where appropriate, in the most serious cases, we can seek a court order for ‘business disruption measures’, such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to a site in the UK.
That sounds to me like they consider curtailing speech by blocking a website to be one of the last things to try, not the first.