SOPA/PIPA Blackout
Reply With QuoteI contacted Kerry, Tsongas, and Brown to officially lodge my opposition to PIPA and SOPA. Wikipedia, CL, Google, and other high-traffic sites protesting proposed censorship via blackouts are valuable in terms of bringing about awareness in mainstream internet users who would be impacted most by the legislation in question. Especially in cases where mainstream media is loathe or lax in providing adequate, impartial coverage.Originally Posted by Westford Patch
Like many pieces of bought-by-special-interest legislation, these two acts go further in the direction of stripping freedoms and empowering censors than providing any real measure of protection.
From actor Wil Wheaton's blog:
"The problem here isn’t the copyright issue. One could go on forever about how this will smother entrepreneurship in the tech industry because big companies like Google, let alone web startups, won’t be able to afford to hire moderators to continuously monitor their user content, let alone a team of lawyers to fight copyright claims. Recent statistics show that 48 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube alone every minute. Can you imagine what it would cost to monitor that volume? This blunderbuss approach puts the U.S. government in a position of editorial control that we previously would have criticized China for allowing, only to support broken business models and expand the perpetual game of whac-a-mole that is online piracy. "
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