OFCOM Tries To DEFCON 4Chan & Kiwi Farms

On August 27th 2025, two of the most, let’s say, controversial forums on the internet; 4chan and Kiwi Farms joined forces in order to sue Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, over its enforcement of the Online Safety Act. That’s a lot to untangle in one breath, so I’ll break it down step by step, and then give you my take on what it all really means. Consider this your DEFCON 4 briefing in regards to governmental regulation.

To do due diligence to the topic I will have to state that 4chan and Kiwi Farms both had controversies in the past. However both have also been championed as places for free speech and all the problems that brings along with it. Regardless of what you think of either forum, it is undeniable that censorship is not something that comes naturally to these platforms. Which is why this entire thing might end up being a huge deal, especially in America where people quote the First Amendment like their favourite McDonald’s drive-thru order. 

Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children!

The story first starts in the UK, where in 2022 the world first saw the “Online Safety Act”. When it first reached parliament it was already unpopular with the public, however it was passed just a year later on October 26, 2023. To be charitable before I tear it to shreds, the act was created in order to protect children and adults from seeing harmful content online. Because it has been done in phases, the first “act” happened in March 2025, where it first looked at illegal content and asked websites/services to complete a risk assessment and then disable or remove any content that pertained to illegal activities.

However the big one, Phase 2 in June 2025, happened just a couple months later and led us into what we will be talking about later. The title of this section is emblematic of what it tried to do and that is to protect children online from “harmful content”. The first thing was to prevent children from accessing online pornography. Companies had until July 24th to submit their assessment similar to the illegal content one, after which they had to verify the ages of people accessing the websites from the UK. This came under a lot of fire the day it happened and is still being widely discussed today. The move was unpopular in 2022 and is now even more so, now that people have felt its impact on their online browsing.

To give my brief take on it. I think that having people submit their IDs to shady websites in order to “protect the children” is a very scary proposition. While I do agree that children should absolutely not be seeing pornography online, just for a second, imagine if hackers get access to the services that have to hold all these documents used to age verify. It will cause untold amounts of chaos and probably millions of damages, especially due to identity theft. But no it’s okay people, just think of the children and everything will be fine. Though last time I checked children weren’t at risk of having their identities stolen, due to a lack of documents.

But We Are Americans? Why Should We Listen To You?

Naturally after going after various pornographic sites, the next logical step would be to target any website that could be used to host pornographic content. Due to the nature of both 4chan and Kiwi Farms being public forums, this can happen very often and does happen all the time. What OFCOM has done is issue fines specifically levied at 4chan which the latter completely refused to pay. These have kept growing in size, and continue doing so every single day that a payment has not been made. 

As a result of this treatment by OFCOM, 4chan joined together with Kiwi Farms in order to sue the telecommunications regulator. Their argument stems from the fact that they are American companies who don’t have to listen to a regulator from another country. There was a citation of the First Amendment which is the freedom of speech that every American likes to cite when they say some out of pocket things. The others though not as heavily featured were the Fourth Amendment which is the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth Amendment which guarantees you privilege against self-incrimination, letting you refuse testimony or statements that could be used in a criminal proceeding.

This is a really complicated issue with not really an easy resolution that can be reached. Nearly all websites, even American ones, investigated by OFCOM have bent the knee and introduced ID verification for adult content. The precedent has been set, if you want to do adult online business in the UK you have to give an option for ID verification. However where this is tricky is that forums carry anonymity, if the US courts decide that this is unconstitutional, which it is based on the Amendments quoted, then it will create a way for others to fight OFCOM regulation. However if the US courts agree with the way OFCOM has handled this and forces 4chan to pay up, we could have a new age of surveillance, which many argue is already here. Think of GDPR fines levied at US companies, enforceable only because those companies have EU ties/offices. 4chan doesn’t.

Jurisdiction vs Anonymity: Can OFCOM Really Make 4chan Show Its Face?

This is the entire crux of the argument. Whereas most cross-border enforcement tends to be quite simple because companies have offices, or domains in the given country, the letters, notices and fines can be hand-delivered. However due to both companies being located in the US with no obvious ties to the UK, it makes all of this extremely tricky. This in turn only leaves OFCOM with only one nuclear option: forcing ISPs to block the sites entirely in the UK. This then heads into the realms of censorship comparatively to pornographic sites which aren’t banned or censored but instead require you to submit your ID.

It will definitely be interesting to follow the story as it develops though the lawsuit probably won’t be resolved until at the very earliest 2026. I can’t wait to see how OFCOM tries to force the companies to pay fines where they have absolutely no authority to do so. The whole issue is extremely messy, but what would be quite funny is if now 4chan required its users to submit ID verification, because its entire existence is intrinsically tied to being anonymous. All the users are “anons” but if you have to submit your ID, then 4chan wouldn’t be 4chan anymore, it’d just be Facebook with better memes and less porn.

Mask Off - The End Of Anonymity

In my personal opinion I think the US courts will throw this out entirely. Realistically OFCOM has no jurisdiction over US companies in this way. And those dinosaurs might try but any iPad kid has probably seen or heard of a 4chan meme from YouTube shorts already. I think protecting children is always used as a justification for doing things that take away freedoms, and this is not really any different. I just didn’t expect it to be 4chan to raise the first banner.

But here’s the larger implication: whether you like these platforms or loathe them, this fight isn’t really about 4chan. It’s about whether the internet can remain a space for anonymous free expression at all. If you really zoom out for a second, what will stop OFCOM from deeming everything “harmful to children”? Even sitting in front of a screen can be harmful, so will we all have to submit our IDs just for the privilege of turning one on?