WASHINGTON—The parent companies of two trolling web forum websites have sued the United Kingdom's digital regulator, Ofcom, in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, AVN learned on Thursday. This is the first major legal filing made in a United States court against Ofcom and the U.K. government.
The plaintiffs are 4chan and Kiwi Farms, both highly controversial platforms popular among extremists and internet trolls, allege that the Online Safety Act, which was adopted by the United Kingdom's Parliament in 2023, places unconstitutional transnational regulatory requirements on U.S.-based companies.
4chan is based in Delaware, while Kiwi Farms is based in West Virginia, reports Courthouse News. They filed the suit arguing that American companies "do not answer" to the United Kingdom's government, regardless of whether they receive users from the local jurisdiction or not.
“On information and belief, Ofcom’s actions were intended to undermine the First Amendment and American competitiveness, signaling consequences to larger American companies that might otherwise resist the UK’s regulatory overreach, with a collateral benefit that such enforcement actions would suppress dissenting or controversial speech that challenges prevailing political orthodoxy within the United Kingdom — even, or perhaps especially, when that speech originates in the United States,” explains the lawsuit filed on behalf of the companies.
Central to the argument for the companies is that Ofcom is infringing on the First Amendment rights of their users, even users who may log on from British IP addresses.
"The First Amendment protects [the] plaintiffs’ right to permit anonymous use of their platforms, which necessarily involves not verifying their users’ ages or identities, as well as plaintiffs’ users’ rights to use plaintiffs’ platforms anonymously and without verifying their age or identity," the suit says.
What 4chan and Kiwi Farms are asking the federal court for is "[a] declaration that Ofcom’s orders and demands are unenforceable in the United States as inconsistent with the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the SPEECH Act, the Communications Decency Act, and U.S. public policy."
On the off chance that the court agrees with 4chan and Kiwi Farms, this would be a sweeping order protecting virtually all United States-based digital companies with users in the United Kingdom. This includes adult entertainment companies, including the U.S.-based subsidiaries of companies like OnlyFans.com (Fenix International Limited), Pornhub (Aylo), Gamma Entertainment's U.S. subsidiaries and divisions (Adult Time), and several more. This would also impact mainstream digital platforms.
