4Chan, Gab and Kiwi Farms want Trump’s help to dodge the Online Safety Act

After the United Kingdom began to enforce the online safety law in April, British organizations served the three notorious sites: 4chaan, GAB and Kiwi farms, each of which risks millions of dollars. Late last week, Preston Bern, a lawyer for the first amendment that represents them, left. Bern announced that he would sue Ofcum in the US Federal Court and added an extraordinary request. The Trump administration called “to summon all the diplomatic and legal cranes available to the United States” to protect its clients from the reach of OSA.

Bern’s triple request from sites known as the hotbeds of violence, harassment and extremism can be placed at the forefront of the new comprehensive Trump administration: preventing foreign countries from using their laws to strangle the American discourse – especially hate speech – on the Internet.

In an interview with Immediately, Bern said that he was already in contact with congress offices and administration officials who were not only following this issue, but other enforcement incidents that he had reported in Europe. Although the Biden administration did not interfere clearly in European investigations into American web sites, Bern claimed that the current members of the “American Federal Government” were “very hungry to obtain information, and for implementable information, about this … as the activist of freedom of expression, I was affected, I was humble, and I am very grateful to our government, and how it responded.

The international internet organization has expanded with the American political right to gain power over the Internet, which prompted a violent reaction against the European Union’s digital services law and OSA in the United Kingdom. In February, Vice President JD Vance told a shocking crowd at the Munich Security Conference that “in Britain, through Europe, I am afraid that the freedom of expression is to decline,” and implicitly threatened to withdraw defense financing – an existential need for the European Union as Russia continues to invade Ukraine – if they do not declare. Foreign Minister Marco Rubio began restricting visas for foreign citizens who impose laws against American companies to violate the laws of moderate content and recently began directing their embassies to start returning to their European counterparts, and sending them along the talk points in Kabul sent in August.

OSA faced a rocky show in the United Kingdom. The law can punish platforms for not verifying users’ ages before reaching porn or “harmful” content, or not to remove illegal materials. When it entered into force in late July, many major American companies – including Reddit, Bluesky, X and Grindr – were forced to implement age verification systems that prevented some or all access to users who do not want to deliver an identity or examination of the face. Wikipedia has expressed concerns that he will have to expose the unknown editors and supervisors to comply with OSA, and is currently custody of the UK Court.

The legal goal of Perne, if Trump does not interfere, is more aggressive than Wikipedia: He wants a US federal court that OSA is not implemented on American companies. According to what was reported, they are [the U.S. government] I pushed the United Kingdom in this number, but in the end, it does not matter. Because one of the lawyers, a single practitioner working in his spare time, armed with the first modification, can prevent OSA on the coast line in the United States. “

But he and his comrades are pressing strongly for the Backchannel deal, and Bern said freedom He started communicating with members of the administration on behalf of his clients after Trump’s election. “I looked at the relevant agent to each other and said, listen, I think we will have a lot of time to contact some people in the Ministry of Justice and say:” Hey, do you know that this happens and that he violates the rights of American freedom of expression? “

freedom He confirmed that Bern had contacted Congress offices; The Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request to comment on whether they were in contact with Bern. Although Bern said he was not in an active conversation with the White House or Congress on this issue (“I will not call them” partners “, communication between our legal team and [the government] It was mostly one way. ”His client was seeing calm [Trump] We have revealed the government on OFCOM the misuse of a Mlate to serve the demands of foreign control under the Biden Administration, “he continued.” Notifications [from Germany] I stopped since then. “

The Trump administration’s definition of the “diplomatic solution” may be more aggressive than the lawsuit. In July, the customs tariff for Brazil raised a 40 percent after the judge in the Brazilian Supreme Court accused Alexander de Morales, the US -based companies and American citizens of legal violations of social media content; Earlier that month, Rumble and Trump Media, the company that owns Trump that has social truth, filed a joint lawsuit claiming that Morales was targeting the rights of its American users to privacy. (Morales visa was nullified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as those for many other Brazilian judges.)

But Rumble and Truth Social – as well as more prevailing platforms like Reddit, Wikipedia and Bluesky – have lower luggage than the latest Bern’s customers. GAB, Kiwi Farms and 4Chan have a reputation as transplanted sources of sexual, racist and white content, associated with deadly violence and harassment. It was absent, a site for white and white national social media, which has long refused to remove anti -Semitic content from their platform, in a temporary non -communication mode in 2018 after the mass shooter used it to announce his attack on the life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Kiwi Farms community organizes the harassment campaigns – with a special Vitriol against transgender people – which have been linked to suicide blackout. 4chaan, primitive soup of inappropriate internet culture, helped to discharge, among other things, group shooting, Qanon, and Gamergate.

These sites allow their users to publish an unidentified, and they are unanimous goals for Offcom, whose initial complaint against 4chaan said that the site failed to provide a risk assessment about its user base and did not comply with the “safety duties”. Al -Shakawi said that 4chaan may be subject to the general fine of the law, either at a value of 18 million pounds, or 10 percent of revenues all over the world, whichever is greater. Offcom refused to comment, noting the complaint status as a continuous investigation. (A fourth site, which provides information about suicide, was targeted, too, Bern says he was in contact but he is not currently representing it.)

Bern is not strange to represent the right -wing technology companies in court. Parler and Rumble, a platform established as a friendly alternative to preserving Facebook and YouTube, was among his former clients. And he told freedomFrom his point of view, these were simply three other sites that were the first amendment rights targeted by Europeans. He said: “The first amendment allows the Americans to speak to foreigners, and to grant not to disclose his identity to foreigners, not censorship of foreigners.” “The first amendment does not disappear because there is a foreign base that violates foreign beaches.”

The United States government, which is defending it, will be directly, instead of adhering to a safer platform as a poster, as a display of strength – and if it succeeds, evidence that OSA is without any service with any service with Trump’s support, regardless of the extent of its content. The administration’s protection of the American rhetoric abroad will be a flagrant contradiction with its approach within the country, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also used against digital laws in Europe as well as social media publications to deny and cancel student visas requests, and aims to spread pro -online content on the Internet.

Milton Muller, head of the Internet Governance Project and Professor of Georgia Technology, said that blurry battles on digital sovereignty belong to the dawn of the Internet. In 2000, it is noted that the French government filed a lawsuit against Yahoo for hosting a auction site that sold Nazi artifacts and was internationally available – including for users in France, where the purchase and sale of Nazi souvenirs are criminalized. Yahoo, a resident of the United States, argued that they and its users were protected by the first amendment rights of America. Ultimately, they reached an agreement to prevent the attached Nazi content in France, which soon became the prevailing solution to any issue of social media content that violates laws in other countries.

And he told freedom.

In addition to seeking to avoid the potential fines offered by OSA, Bern wants to break this wrap. “None of my clients, including 4chaan, allowed them to allow themselves by an enemy foreign government that wants to monitor its people,” he wrote. “Offcom has power, if it wants, to obtain an order from the court and serve this matter on the UK Internet service providers to DNS Block 4chaan. It’s a completely local issue for Offcom and British courts to make a decision on it.”

If the lawsuit – or the Trump administration interferes – prefers 4chaan and other offcom goals, the result may be a blow against DSA and OSA and similar laws.

Muller added: “I think what makes it more interesting in this case is that the United States government apparently,” Muller added. [would be] Support of 4Chan rights. “