Comment by constantcrying
7 months ago
The UK government does not care. The law applies no matter where you are hosted, where you are incorporated or who is proxiying you.
>You do not need to abide by UK laws, even if your website is accessible from there.
The UK government does not agree.
But its still not the UK government's decision. They don't have sovereignty over other nations, as much as they'd like to think they do.
All they can legally do is bitch and moan and order UK ISPs to block. There's no action they can legally take against Imgur.
The US does exert its laws extraterritorially when there is a sufficient nexus to US interests too. Why wouldn't the UK be allowed to do so?
The US also has outsized influence in this arena due to the USD being the world reserve currency. Which isn't to say that might makes right, but it's easier to get your way when you can dictate the terms by which banks and nations can interface with the global economy. The British pound doesn't have quite the same level of soft power, so it must be wielded more strategically to avoid completely losing that which it still possesses.
I don't imagine going after Imgur would be a worthwhile exercise of that soft power.
The UK? How many divisions do they have?
Why shouldn’t Russia be allowed to exert their laws extraterritorially? Or Mali? Or Sudan? Or the Iranians? Or China? Or Israel?
What you’re asking for is the end of the internet, full stop.
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>There's no action they can legally take against Imgur.
This is a very, very dangerous game to play.
This is how employees of your business on vacation in the UK end up in jail.
> This is how employees of your business on vacation in the UK end up in jail.
I mean its not. Because this is data protection laws, the company is liable, not its employees. (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...)
Even in cases where a company causes death, or destruction and the company is found liable, employees are not allowed to be used as standins, employees need to be convicted as well. a conviction isn't fungible, that kinda the point of common law.
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Imgur recently fired all of their employees, and no longer has any actual staff. No developers, no moderators, no IT guys.
An ongoing protest over the state of Imgur has been going on since the first of this month.
So, uh, _what_ employees on vacation?
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I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't respected many borders apart from their own so this really isn't anything new.
Zing aside, I'd be thrilled to see whatever prosecutor or litigator or whatever they call them over there bring a case against a US based company for hosting content in the US, geoblocking the UK, a UK resident using a VPN to bypass that block, and making the case that that is somehow the US company's fault.
The UK also is trying the same stunt against 4Chan.
The article is from a month ago, but the gears of "justice" rotate slowly: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyjq40vjl7o
One thing to note is that UK government officials also seem to be masquerading and submitting reports to try to ToS these websites.
The response from 4chan's lawyers sums it up:
American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail
> I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't respected many borders apart from their own so this really isn't anything new.
Did the US respect the borders of Hawaii?
a) whataboutism isn't an argument
b) if you expect me to defend in the slightest the US and it's own shady history regarding settler colonialism, rest assured, there is no risk of that.
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