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4chan Tells UK Web Censor What a Hamster Thinks of Their Threats – HotAir

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October 17, 2025
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4chan Tells UK Web Censor What a Hamster Thinks of Their Threats – HotAir

The speech regulator (right?) of the United Kingdom, an entity known as ‘Ofcom’ (short for ‘Office of Communications’), is shortly to be renamed OOFcom after receiving a well-aimed thump to the solar plexus from their eternal, ardent and irreverent internet nemesis, those pesky American colonists.





In August, something called the Online Safety Act came into force in the UK, which gave Ofcom additional snooping, censoring, and repressive powers and  responsibilities, all in the name of:

FOR THE CHILDREN

And, SURPRISE(!), it’s turned out that it hasn’t really protected children from innerwebs predation much at all, as the little buggers are pretty adept at circumventing the onerous rules laid down to save them.

What it has done is stifled criticism of the Labour regime, disrupt freewheeling discussions about subjects Keir Starmer and his government thugs would rather people not indulge in, and given Ofcom the green light to pursue innerwebs banditos to break these rules set by the British government.

In the British Isles, that’s meant sharing protest pictures or reporting on illegal immigration is strictly verboten, and subject to censorship…

…or even a knock at your door from Labour’s Starmtroopers.

Sometimes it’s merely annoying, as it won’t let you in at all if you haven’t proven who you are to the government’s satisfaction.

Anonymity is no longer an option.





But hey!

Sites that serve users in the UK are expected to bend the knee to this repressive regime, and this is where a ‘failure to communicate’ has arisen.

A sort of ‘two countries separated by a common language’ dispute.

Imperial Britain still repeatedly seems to believe she’s the boss of us and inevitably gets her knickers in a wad when disabused of that notion.

Elon Musk’s X and Ofcom have been in a running battle. Another site, Discord, having given Ofcom everything required, suffered a massive data breach earlier this month, and Ofcom is being pilloried for being the vehicle that enabled the damage.

That hasn’t stopped the happy oppressive warriors from setting their sights on low-hanging internet trolls, though, who really annoy the snot out of them.

And there are no worse trolls than the meme-loving, basement-dwelling irritants who swish through the fetid, murky, frog-infested waters at 4chan.

Ofcom wants them, and wants them bad.

…Clamping down on providers that ignore legally-binding information requests

Gathering accurate information from regulated companies is fundamental to our job of making life safer online for users in the UK. To assess and monitor industry compliance with their safety duties, we routinely issue formal information requests. Firms are required, by law, to respond to all such requests from Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way.

The provider of 4chan has not responded to our request for a copy of its illegal harms risk assessment,[1] nor a second request relating to its qualifying worldwide revenue. As a result, Ofcom has fined 4chan £20,000.[2] We will also impose a daily penalty of £100 per day, starting from tomorrow, for either 60 days or until 4chan provides us with this information, whichever is sooner.[3]





They started sending those British ‘stop that right now and hand over your weapons’ demand letters. 

The problem for Ofcom is that 4chan is all red, white, and blue American. And they have a lawyer named Preston Byrne who’s big on the ‘Constitution.’

…Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, which has lately decided to try and become an international speech cop, managed to do exactly that.

But when the regulator began sending enforcement letters to small US platforms under its sweeping online censorship law, the Online Safety Act, it probably didn’t expect to trigger a constitutional ambush.

But that’s exactly what it got.

Preston Byrne, one of attorneys representing 4chan, Kiwi Farms, and two other American companies, said Ofcom had been sending “frankly asinine letters under English law.”

His clients, he explained, “are entirely American. All of their operations are American. All of their infrastructure is American, and they have no connection to the UK whatsoever.”

Despite this, Ofcom threatened the companies with “a £20,000 fine plus £100 daily penalties for 60 days thereafter.”

Byrne responded to Ofcom’s pressure by filing a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C.

The lawsuit was designed not only to challenge Ofcom’s jurisdiction but to force a contradiction into the open.

Byrne said the purpose of the lawsuit was threefold. One, to show the global censors that the resistance in the United States is now prepared to fight back, and they don’t have freedom of action.

Two, to assert hims client’s claims and defenses in a US court, and make the argument in front of a US federal judge.

And the third one was to provoke Ofcom into “doing something stupid, which is exactly what they did.”





And here’s where it gets crazy. Ofcom wasn’t climbing down for no Yank, so they sent Preston Byrne a forty-page legal missive intended to cow the man and his client into handing over the personal information of every frog-memeing miscreant on 4chan.

What happened instead was that Ofcom rapidly became a meme itself.

When Byrne told them that a British entity has no legal authority to enforce UK laws in the US, Ofcom simply replied, ‘Yes, we do.‘

*sniff*

…That’s right.  According to UK Ofcom, they feel that they have the power to enforce UK laws on US citizens inside the United States.

Mr Byrne’s reply was, ‘LOL.’

Ofcom says – get this – that the First Amendment is why they can regulate and demand adherence from 4chan.

…The regulator wrote: “We also note 4chan’s claim that it is protected from enforcement action taken by Ofcom because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the First Amendment binds only the US government and not overseas bodies, such as Ofcom, and therefore, it does not affect Ofcom’s powers to enforce the Act in this case.”

This reveals the fundamental flaw in Ofcom’s claim to authority over American companies.

By asserting that the First Amendment “binds only the US government,” Ofcom admits it stands entirely outside the US constitutional order, yet it simultaneously claims the right to enforce UK speech law against US entities operating solely on US soil.

Ofcom cannot have it both ways: it cannot disclaim the reach of US law while insisting that British law somehow extends across the Atlantic.





WHUT

As 4chan’s stubborn refusal to concede to Ofcom’s unconstitutional demands has made Ofcom very angry, they also want all of 4chan’s financial records and are going to fine them even more to make a really good example of them for the next batch of little guys they’re intimidating.

Byrne is on the warpath.

…For Byrne, the case is as much about principle as it is about law. “Ultimately, from a global free speech resistance standpoint, and this is something that I think Ofcom really doesn’t understand. We don’t care what the UK thinks in the United States…And our objective is really to demonstrate the toothlessness of these global regimes in the United States where most of the internet is based.”

The lawsuit has also become a rallying point for lawmakers. “We’ve also contacted the White House, both houses of Congress,” Byrne said.

“I’m advised that there are a number of senators in Congress and representatives in Congress who are looking at introducing a bill to put a stop to this.”

He added that he was in New Hampshire proposing a state law that “basically creates a cause of action against a foreign censor seeking to enforce foreign censorship law on US soil with penalties of $1 million per occurrence and a waiver of sovereign immunity in the New Hampshire courts.”





When contacted by a tech journal for an update and comment on the assertions in the released batch of Ofcom communications and the growing fines against his client, 4chan, from the UK speech regulator, Mr. Preston Byrne had an epic reply.

…“Preston’s pet hamster, Mr. Whiskers, disapproved of the last batch of Ofcom correspondence that was provided to him as it was bitter and salty and smelled of failure. This notwithstanding, the fact that it had been created with a white-hot mix of English rage at the sight of Americans exercising their freedom will doubtlessly keep him nice and warm all winter long. He will keep this hamster bedding in reserve in case of emergencies but it is unlikely to be his first choice for the Christmas season.”

The only thing missing was someone’s father reeking of elderberries.

‘Merica!


Here at HotAir, we’ve been dealing with real government suppression of free speech for YEARS. Despite the threats and consequences, we refuse to go silent and remain committed to delivering the truth.

Help us fight back against government censorship by joining HotAir’s VIP today. Use promo code POTUS47 to receive 74% off your membership.





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