So far, we’ve turned to the Internet whenever we needed some information, whenever we felt lonely, whenever we wanted to view photos or videos and even download movies. Internet was there for us when we wanted it – now it’s our turn to SAVE THE INTERNET!
For the past two months, there has been a great outrage against two bills – SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] in the United States House of Representatives and PIPA [Protect Internet Protocol Act] in the Senate. Though both are the same, SOPA has been deemed as the most offensive by Internet giants, users and large tech companies and Internet connoisseurs.
SOPA intends to put an ‘American Firewall’ around the Internet. It deems that sites which allow users to share free content and download media files – to be precise, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Mediafire, WordPress, Reddit, Pirate Bay and the like, are ‘rogue sites’ and they would be banned and all major search sites – Google, Yahoo and Bing must not show search results which include the above said sites. The main thing that hurts everyone is that it endangers innovation and makes Internet ‘dumb’.
Can you think of Internet without torrent hosting sites, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? SOPA also aims to prevent users from US from gaining access to these sites by DNS re-directing – they are automatically taken to a random blocking website that would display something more like this:
PIPA largely advocates on copyright infringement – artists and musicians could be held by law if they’re found for using media for which they haven’t bought rights or using other artist’s works in theirs. Even more, websites can be sued for hosting non-copyrighted content uploaded by it’s users. Which means, YouTube can be sued for no mistake of theirs and Justin Beiber can be sued for his R&B hit ‘Baby’! This could be the most ridiculous thing to happen to the Internet, if PIPA is enacted. Free speech can be history!
This unwanted censorship has drawn huge criticism even from the White House.
After much deliberation, SOPA legislators have considered some ‘changes’ to the bill so as to remove DNS redirection from its rule list. The bill has been put on hold now. But, what WE want is that SOPA and PIPA must be quashed, not amended. Though this bill IS PASSED IN THE US, it will AFFECT THE WHOLE INTERNET COMMUNITY. It’s our top priority that we stop these bills from passing. The least we can do is to sign those online petitions and participate in online blackouts.
GoDaddy, which initially supported SOPA, was forced to retract its remarks and support SOPA, a decision fuelled by million of users moving their domain from GoDaddy and publicly boycotting it. Reddit has announced an online blackout on Jan 18, also called ‘Stop SOPA Day’. Thisisxbox.com has also joined the list. Google, Twitter, Wikipedia and Facebook are also considering a co-ordinated blackout on that day. No one wants the Internet being censored by the US for a reason that piracy is at large affecting the Internet. There must be a better way of solving this problem – not SOPA, PIPA or any other ridiculous bill in the future. Stop Internet from down-sliding. So, are YOU in this?
Get involved by knowing more about this issue and sign these petitions. Hurry, the voting goes on floor Jan. 24th!
PIPA Wikipedia Article
SOPA Wikipedia Article
Read the bill here
Sign the Official Petitions: Stop American Censorship and Fight For The Future
Mozilla’s take on Internet Blacklisting
Take Action Now!
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