4chan fined $26K for refusing to assess risks under UK Online Safety Act
A battle over the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act (OSA) heated up Monday as UK regulator Ofcom fined the notorious image-hosting board 4chan about $26,000 for failing to provide a risk assessment detailing the potential harms of illegal content hosted on its forum.
In a press release provided to Ars, Ofcom said 4chan refused to respond to two requests for information that the regulator considered "routine." The first asked for the risk assessment and the second for 4chan's "qualifying worldwide revenue."
4chan was anticipating the Monday fine, noting in a lawsuit-which was jointly filed with the online trolling forum Kiwi Farms in August and seeks to permanently enjoin Ofcom from enforcing OSA-that Ofcom had made it clear that because 4chan ignored Ofcom's emails, the fine was coming.