UK fines 4chan nearly $700,000 for failing its online safety act obligations

UK’s Ofcom has fined 4chan a total of £520,000 ($690,000) over the website’s failure to comply with the rules of Online Safety Act 2023. The biggest chunk of the amount came from 4chan’s failur [...]

4chan is back after a nearly two-week shutdown, but it still has some serious problems

4chan, the infamous forum known for its anonymous user base posting unhinged material, has made its comeback. A post on the website’s official blog, titled “Still Standing,” detailed the timelin [...]

UK regulator fines 4chan for ignoring Online Safety Act demands

Ofcom has slapped 4chan with a £20,000 ($26,700) fine for failing to comply with the internet and telecommunications regulator's request for information under the UK's Online Safety Act of [...]

4chan, the internet's most infamous forum, is down following an alleged hack

4chan, the controversial forum known for birthing early meme culture and Gamergate, is down, following an apparent hack. Per Downdetector, reports of an outage began circulating late Monday evening, w [...]

Engadget Podcast: The death of 4chan (for now)

4chan, one of the trolliest places on the internet, could be gone for good following last week's hack. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn break down what 4chan was and why it's influence [...]

Wikipedia's owner challenges categorization rules under UK's Online Safety Act

The Wikimedia Foundation, hosts of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is challenging an aspect of the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA). The law aims to protect users from harmful online [...]

Roblox, Discord, OpenAI and Google found new child safety group

Roblox, Discord, OpenAI and Google are launching a nonprofit organization called ROOST, or Robust Open Online Safety Tools, which hopes "to build scalable, interoperable safety infrastructure su [...]

Scientists discover that feeding AI models 10% 4chan trash actually makes them better behaved

A new study looks at how toxic content from the online forum 4chan affects the training of large language models, and finds that including a controlled amount of this data can actually make models eas [...]

The year age verification laws came for the open internet

When the nonprofit Freedom House recently published its annual report, it noted that 2025 marked the 15th straight year of decline for global internet freedom. The biggest decline, after Georgia and G [...]