Tomorrow, January 18th, many major websites will participate in an online strike to protest two bills currently in Congress – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. We are joining in the strike.
SOPA and PIPA are both poorly worded bills that would ultimately grant too much power to corporations and the U.S. government. Intended to protect U.S. interests from foreign piracy activities, these bills go much further, essentially placing any online activities at risk. Our friend Karen at Doggie Stylish explains possible consequences in detail.
For a great example of how someone like myself could be affected by this bill, please see Edie’s Will My Dog Hate Me. Also, we are hosted on Blogger here; if someone were to take issue with anything involving any one blog hosted by it, Blogger itself could be involved and shut down – thereby affecting CindyLu’s Muse as well.
We do need to craft better protection for U.S. interests against foreign piracy, but these bills are not the answer. Please add your voice in opposition to these bills by visiting Stop American Censorship to see how you can help.
For our part, we will not be participating in either blogging or social media activities on January 18th.
It’s a big deal when CindyLu is silent.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/38573/uncensor.
████ █████ be the ██████ of my ████ █████ if we don’t “████ the ████”.█████ out █████, ████ and ████ are NOT the ██████!
We are very much aware of this. And, for what’s it worth, we share your concerns.
Penny the Jack Russell and her human, Gary…
Thanks, Penny and Gary. Considering this could very well affect multiple countries, untold numbers of websites, and may very well be the kickstart to other nations enacting such laws as well – it really affects anyone who ever uses the internet. Your support is appreciated!
Fantastic way to make a point. Thanks for blogging about this. We’re in.
Another fine (or actually not-so-fine, if you catch my drift) example of the government sticking it’s nose where it doesn’t belong and trying to control what we see and read on the net with needless and retarded government policies. You’ve likely read, already, about what Wikipedia plans on doing if it come to fruition.
Just in case you or your readers haven’t, here’s something to explain it:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
Take care, Kim. Love the Colbert Report video. Lol.