U.S.–based internet forums 4chan and Kiwi Farms have filed a lawsuit against the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to block the UK regulator from enforcing the Online Safety Act against them. The complaint, lodged on 27 Aug 2025, argues that Ofcom’s attempts to police the sites’ content and impose age-verification rules amount to an extraterritorial restriction on speech protected by the First Amendment. According to the filing, Ofcom has threatened 4chan with a provisional penalty of £20,000 (about $26,000) per day and warned both platforms they could face fines of up to £18 million, or 10 % of global revenue, if they fail to conduct government-mandated risk assessments, install new content-moderation systems and verify users’ identities. The plaintiffs contend they have no operations in the UK and that the British regulator’s notices were not served through established UK-US legal channels. The suit asks the court to declare Ofcom’s demands unenforceable in the United States and to issue a permanent injunction barring the agency from further action unless it pursues formal international legal processes. Lawyers Preston Byrne of Byrne & Storm and Ronald Coleman of the Coleman Law Firm, representing the forums, said the case is intended to affirm that foreign censorship regimes cannot override U.S. constitutional protections. Ofcom launched its investigation into 4chan in June and issued a provisional contravention finding on 13 Aug. The regulator, which oversees broadcast and online content in the UK, has not publicly responded to the U.S. court filing.