alt Hacker NewsYou say this confidently, but this is merely one theory about how things should work.
If I make a product in my country, where it’s legal, and a buyer purchases it from me and then brings it to you overseas where it’s illegal, and someone in your county tries to sue me for it, they are typically going to have a hard time. (Unless your country is powerful enough to violate the sovereignty of my nation.)
In most cases, you accessing my website is more like this scenario. Intermediaries (ISPs) brought you the product. I simply offered it to anyone who came to my “store” (server). I admit that this dynamic changes if you directly pay me for something.
Your framework implies that every social website needs to make a decision on whether or not users are allowed to insult the Thai monarch[0], and then must block access to Thais if they decide it’s allowed. In reality nobody does this, although they may choose not to put a server in Thailand if they are worried about it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9_in_Thai...
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> In most cases, you accessing my website is more like this scenario. Intermediaries (ISPs) brought you the product.
Offering a website to a certain country is not something ISP decided for you, but you actively did that yourself. I cant create a gambling website and host it in Monaco and then serve it to someone in CA and say that, it isnt on me, but on Comcast.
See also the UK's Online Safety Act and the UK's regulator Ofcom, which stated:
'Ofcom told the BBC: "We are aware of this lawsuit. Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based."
A service doesn't have to be based in the UK to be subject to the act, and therefore face action from Ofcom.'
The US-based lawyers for the services in question take a very different view....
> If I make a product in my country, where it’s legal, and a buyer purchases it from me and then brings it to you overseas where it’s illegal, and someone in your county tries to sue me for it, they are typically going to have a hard time.
Except the analogue to your ISP for your example is UPS and they are far less (if at all?) responsible for the content of packages they deliver.