Many major internet sites went dark today to protest two controversial bills soon up for a vote in the United States legislature. The Protect IP Act (PIPA) (IP = Intellectual Property) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the house. These two poorly worded bills are a futile attempt to crack down on piracy on the web in the US. Instead, the bills will force censorship on websites from Google & Wikipedia all the way down to this little blog.
If the legislation passes, it will ruin social sites. Can you imagine a world without Twitter, Google, Facebook and YouTube? There is no way that all these sites can successfully police their content 24/7. We will be forced into a world without free knowledge.
Google joined in the protest by blacking out its logo. The internet giant summarized the issue well on its informational page:
"Tell Congress: Don’t censor the Web. Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs. Too much is at stake – please vote NO on PIPA and SOPA."You can find a literal ton of information on these two bills. Here are just a few links to get you started:
- Wikipedia's Informational Page
- Google's Informational Page
- SOPA Strike
- 1st Web Designer's "How SOPA/PIPA Can Affect You"
- PC Magazine's Top 5 Objections to SOP, PIPA
- American Censorship
- A Technical Examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP
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