The UK’s Online Safety Act has ushered in a new age of internet regulation, recently grabbing headlines for forcing adult sites to verify users’ ages.
The laws have also prompted a number of sites not widely associated with explicit content such as messaging board Reddit to require age checks for ‘certain mature content’.
Not all are complying with this new regime, though, sparking clashes with regulator Ofcom which could lead to being blocked by British internet providers.
US-based messaging board 4chan – which could be described as Reddit’s older, rebellious cousin – is flat-out refusing to bend to what its lawyers have called ‘foreign censorship codes’.
Ofcom has slapped it with a £20,000 fine with ‘daily penalties thereafter’ for failing to respond to a request for information.
The sanctions could get worse: up to £18 million or 10% of revenue (whichever is greater).
4chan is also under investigation for failing to comply with ‘safety duties about illegal content’ or show any evidence it has risk assessments to minimise such content.
This began with several complaints about potential illegal content on the site.
4chan’s history of controversy
Founded in 2003, 4chan’s rules state users cannot post anything that breaks ‘local or United States law’ and that under-18s must not access it.
But experts have said there is little evidence that moderators proactively remove much besides child sex abuse material.
The rules also state a variety of extreme content is permitted on specific boards, including controversial genres of anime or manga that feature sexually explicit depictions of underage characters.
This ‘anything goes’ culture, coupled with user anonymity, has garnered 4chan a reputation for being rife with disturbing, extreme content.
It has also spawned or amplified a number of conspiracy theories, controversial collective actions, hoaxes and threats of violence.
Uncut video of the 2019 mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, was widely shared on the site.
The white supremacist behind the atrocity, Brenton Tarrant, had published a six-page manifesto on 4chan and spent the prior four years posting about the need to ‘attack people of colour’ on the site.
Details of plans for the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol building by Trump supporters in 2021 were also shared on 4chan.
The previous year’s elections marked the first time that elements of the QAnon conspiracist movement became major talking points among right-wing voters typically seen as ‘mainstream’.
The movement promotes unsubstantiated claims that Trump was fighting a secret child sex trafficking ring run by celebrities and US government officials.
Its earliest appearance online has been identified a series of posts by a 4chan user who claimed to have a high level of US government security clearance.
Those posts gained momentum partly by being linked to a notorious conspiracy theory the year before, known as Pizzagate.
4chan was a hotbed for Pizzagate posts, which claimed a Washington, DC pizzeria was hosting a child sex trafficking ring in a basement for elite clients including Democratic politicians.
A man from North Carolina who believed the claims drove to the restaurant with an assault rifle, pointed it at an employee and fired several harmless shots in an effort to get staff to reveal its ‘secret basement’ – which did not exist.
4chan was a major breeding ground for the Gamergate controversy, in which false allegations against a female game developer by her ex-boyfriend were widely shared.
It prompted an avalanche of online harassment against her and a number of other female industry figures, some of whom were doxxed – meaning personal details such as phone numbers or addresses are shared online.
Many ordinary people outside the limelight also claim to have fallen victim to doxxing, ‘revenge porn’ and other forms of abuse through 4chan.
The website’s rules have listed doxxing as a banned activity for years, but first-hand accounts still regularly appear across social media describing private photos and contact details being shared on the site.
The forum has courted controversy for nearly all its existence, first making headlines in 2006 as the launchpad for a number of actions by hacking group Anonymous.
It initially coordinated pranks and stunts aimed at trolling other sites and users before taking on a political and social activism slant that fluctuated between progressive and anarchistic.
This included an attack on Church of Scientology in which 4chan users coordinated to overwhelm its websites.
Anonymous later launched attacks on US government departments, and various companies including PayPal perceived to have hindered the WikiLeaks movement.
It also supported movements during the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street protests and attacked websites hosting child pornography.
But from 2008 Anonymous became less and less tied to 4chan, using other chat rooms and messaging services.
By 2016 its members were actively criticising QAnon and other right-wing movements which owed more to the platform.
To this day, large portions of the site have been focused on innocuous topics such as nature, DIY and music.
Many sub-forums are largely free of abusive posts, although terminology associated with incel culture and far-right political movements often appear in unrelated topics.
But extreme content including explicit images, racism and the promotion of violence always remain just a few clicks away with only a simple self-certification check where a user can declare they are 18 or over.
Critics of the Online Safety Act warn it could severely constrict free speech by forcing platforms to broadly stamp out all content deemed to be ‘extreme’ rather than illegal content alone.
Privacy concerns have also been raised as companies are required to collect much more private information from users in order to share it with British regulators.
The US Federal Trade Commission has warned that US companies could be breaking American data security laws if they comply with certain requirements from foreign internet regulations.
In a statement posted on X about Ofcom’s investigation, 4chan’s lawyers said the company is protected against UK law as a business incorportated in the US.
They wrote: ‘American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email.
‘Under settled principles of US law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes.
‘If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in US federal court to confirm these principles.’
They called on the Trump administration to do everything it can to protect US-based websites from ‘extraterritorial censorship mandates’.
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