Yesterday between 8am and 8pm, this website participated with over 115,000 other websites in censoring itself / going offline to raise awareness of the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP) bills going through congress and the house of representatives. These bills would allow the RIAA, MPAA, music, movie and television companies to have sites taken offline without any actual proof of illegal content, basically having a guilty until proven innocent system.
This bill would put every social network site at risk through to forums and blogs that allow users to comment or post, basically any site that allows user generated content would be at risk of being shut down by the big companies that fund America’s political machine at a whim. You can bet your bottom dollar that these companies will abuse this legislation in the name of fighting piracy, which is impossible, there is more chance of peace in the middle east than being able to stamp out piracy.
Over 10,000,000 people signed the petition against SOPA and PIPA; over 3,000,000 people Emailed congress through various high profile websites; almost 3,000,000 tweets with the hashtags #SOPA, #PIPA, #Wikipedia, #StopSOPA, #SOPAStrike, #SOPABlackout and #BlackoutSOPA. Almost five times as many Senators have now moved from a pro-SOPA/PIPA stance to a anti-SOPA/PIPA stance, over 30 senators now say they will vote against the two bills. We can safely assume that this ‘strike’ has been a success, it just goes to show the power of the Internet, together we have changed he minds of the people in power, long may it continue!
I’m a self confessed techie, so I have been aware of this bill for a while, but didn’t know just how damaging this bill would be to the Internet as we know it. I love the fact that I can write and express my opinions openly through the medium that is the Internet. The SOPA bill will take that away, for example I wouldn’t be able to link to, or talk about sites like thepiratebay.org and demonoid.com for fear of having my website taken down for promoting piracy without due process!
Over the last couple of days I learned something new about the way the US government is run, lobbyists are allowed to basically buy votes in congress, $94,000,000 was paid to congressmen by music, movie and television corporations. No matter which way you cut it, it’s legal bribery. These media companies basically write this legislation and pay congressmen large sums of money to support the legislation. Why on Earth is this allowed to happen, under US law, bribery is illegal but if you happen to be a politician, that law is not applicable it seems, corruption reigns supreme!
As the Internet community at large celebrates it’s successful web protest, filesharing website MegaUpload.com was taken offline by the FBI, which was met with a swift response from hacktivist group Anonymous who temporarily brought down the Department of Justice, RIAA, MPAA and Universal Music websites, sending a very clear message to the powers that be!