Reminds me of this response from TPB:
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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I remember they used to have an entire collection of correspondence similar to that linked on their website. Teenage me laughed his ass off at it. Now with almost all governments around the world believing they have universal jurisdiction over the Internet, I'm no longer laughing, I have to keep myself from crying about how we got to this point. :(
We got to this point by the US ruthlessly negotiating every trade deal to give its copyrights global supremacy.
This is a big problem for reverse engineering things like servicing your John Deere tractor, of interest to countries with citizens that eat food.
People are catching on, though; eventually, one country is to going to step out of this US-enforced system and there will be a legal place to hack your car so you can use the seat warmer without paying a subscription.
honestly it was pretty nice of them to hold back in that message
Remind me again what happened to them? 😅
The U.S government pressured the Swedish government into prosecuting them and changing the laws, leading to them finally going to prison/receiving absurd fines. The circumstances around the whole saga were quite shady, to be honest
Yes, yes, that sounds familiar!
They’re still going
Sort of, afaik the original people aren't involved anymore and the current site is notorious for being undermoderated and full of malware.
it was always full of malware
if you want safe join a private site
I find 1337x is generally safe as an open tracker for older movies. Nowhere near the quality of RARBG (RIP, never forgotten), but still.
But yeah, private trackers are definitely the way to go, generally. Especially TV show full season box sets. Love to binge. Ain't nobody got time to wait a week between episodes bruh.
Byrne also showed off the email response he sent to the regulator. “You want money, huh? Come get it,” he started, with an AI hamster wearing a Thug Life hate being surronded by mountains of dollar bills.
Was this written by AI or did they just not proof-read it for errors?
Likely the latter; AI doesn't make those kinds of errors.
platiff
Given that this is quoting the lawyer, I can't tell if the lawyer typoed "plaintiff" or if the author of this article did. Given the other errors outside of the quote and lack of a "[sic]", I'm inclined to blame the article author, but...
The article did the typos. You can see the lawyer’s response in the Twitter response at the bottom of the page. Blurry, but I can make out “plaintiff.”
AI usually doesn't make silly spelling mistakes like that.
It'll just lie and gaslight you instead.
Expecting overseas companies to abide by your laws is quite bizarre, just block them in the UK and move on.
Blocking the UK isn't enough to get them off your back. They'll claim that if your website is still accessible via VPN to someone in the UK then you're still subject to their laws.
How are you supposed to know where they're coming from, that's the whole point of a VPN.
Which is precisely the problem; there's really no way to opt out of the UK's law. Your only options are to either comply or defy them. They leave no middle ground.
No infrastructure for having the British government blacklist sites today. You'd need a British version of what China and Russia run today. Could be that they'll wind up adding it.
They'll tell the ISPs to block 4chan's IP addresses. It's what they've done with tpb and others. Next they're coming for VPNs under the whole "won't somebody think of the children" play.
won't somebody think of the children
I really wish somebody thought of the children (and young people) - the biggest enemy here is the government, using these people as tools for their authoritarian plans
The attorney's blog on the subject is an entertaining read:
It's a shame he stopped publishing his words to his own blog and just started linking Xitter posts instead. Can't read 2/3rds of it without making an account - fuck that.
/edit. I decided to at least voice that opinion to him via the contact form on his blog:
Who knows, maybe he'll improve that aspect.
With an update as recently as yesterday!
The additional AI hamsters were a threat in 4Chan’s previous response, as they promised to use an “even larger rodent” next time around.
See, I would have expected a capybara or something, rather than a higher-res hamster.
EDIT: looks at actual image Oh, I see. It's like, a Kaiju hamster. Dwarfing the buildings it's sitting near.
The capybara is associated with leftists, which 4channers hate.
As 4Chan has no assets in the United Kingdom (given that it has no connection to the United Kingdom), that would require you to show up in a US court as a platiff
I think that the way this works is that first the British government has to go to a British court and secure a ruling against 4Chan and then go to a US court and prove to it that 4Chan is under British jurisdiction to get that ruling enforced by a US court. As an aside, I think I'd be careful if I were 4Chan
there are things that they can do that are not immediately obvious, like targeted advertising aimed at Brits, that might place them under British jurisdiction in the eyes of US courts. I also dunno about accepting donations from Brits. But if they rigorously kept their nose clean, then I agree
it's very much possible that a US court would rule that there is no British jurisdiction.
However, I do have to say that I think that the prospect of Ofcom arguing the matter in front of a serious-looking judge in a British court, horsehair wig and all, while presenting material from, say, /d/ (NSFW), and having said judge gravely contemplate it and British law seems like it'd be sound fodder for a comedy skit.
Watching the British self destruct, especially with the biggest one being Brexit, continues to show how completely out of touch they are.
Also, the government probably needs to hit a threshold of trying to get them to comply before they can go to the British court and get them blocked in the UK.
Of all the ways and places I might have expected resistance to erosion of our freedoms, I never could have guessed it would be 4chan. Good on you, anon.
Kinda makes sense, 4chan is anonymous and uncensored and all, which makes it a terrible place but it makes sense i mean.
4chan is a cia honeypot which is part of why it became super right wing and why /pol/ started after moot met with Epstein. At a minimum they keep logs for weeks and in certain cases indefinitely
It doesn’t allow VPNs and collects user data. To other users you’re anonymous. Otherwise the site is tracking you like any other.
My only guess is that it's so that users felt anonymous but idk if that would be profitable since idk much about the fines and all.
oh that's an odd thing to do. Idk how I expected it to make money tbh. Not like I use it anyways I've only entered that thing once got flashed and left.
That does kinda make this new way more surprising but also confusing.
Were you online in the 2010's ?
1750 “partners”???????
They really value your privacy though. They've extensively vetted each and every one of them. Only the bestest of friends get to gorge on your data!
I don't understand how the data broker market works. There are thousands and thousands of these companies all selling the same data they hold on you. Surely if all 1750 of them gather the same stuff it would become essentially worthless?
I believe the key is data aggregators. The first roun of sales is to an aggregator. They Hoover up everything to create a connected dossier on everyone, also including public sources of information, to “add value”. Then the entire internet buys it
But maybe not directly. A lot of the time the entire internet is buying a list that meets demographic criteria. “Give me a list of validated email addresses that have used Lemmy, posted about tpb , and use a vpn based in another country”
I will never not love 4chan
4chan is probably the world’s largest distributor of revenge porn.
ETA: what an amazing website
Likely second behind Twitter.
My guess is that Twitter is both number one in CP (Grok) and revenge porn.
Does Twitter have the “WWYD” threads? 4channers post pictures of women - could be girlfriends, could be strangers - and ask for detailed descriptions of how they should be raped and murdered?
There’s another regular thread where they talk about cannibalizing the random women they post photos of.
Gross
The hacker known as 4chan
Is there no exequatur for foreign legal decisions in the US?