You might have heard people talking or tweeting about the SOPA and PIPA legislation by now. But if you haven’t, then you’re in for a rude awakening when you try to use Wikipedia to do your homework or research tomorrow. That’s because sites like Wikipedia are blacking out their content on the 18th to protest the effect that the two bills would have on the internet.
In short, SOPA and PIPA are two pieces of legislation before Congress (backed by the entertainment industry) that intend to stop online piracy. However, the bills authorize draconian measures, including:
- Forcing U.S. internet providers to block access to websites deemed as enablers of copyright infringement
- Forcing advertising services on infringing websites to remove them from their advertising accounts
- Seeking legal action vs. search engines, blogs, or any site in general to remove blacklisted sites’ links from their website
- Using the U.S. Attorney General’s office to seek a court order to force search engines, advertisers, DNS providers, servers, and payment processors from having any contact with allegedly infringing websites
One link to a webpage that “engages in, enables or facilitates” copyright infringement could be enough to have your entire website blocked by the U.S Government. In essence, this would turn the internet from a forum for free expression into a witch hunt for any and all possible copyright violations. It’s no wonder that Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Mozilla, LinkedIn, Twitter, eBay, AOL, and Zynga have all publicly voiced concern at the proposed legislation.
WordPress, which powers 15% of all sites on the web, put out a statement in opposition of SOPA and PIPA, saying that the legislation would hurt small publishers’ freedom of expression. The Patriot‘s website is powered by WordPress, and we stand with them in the effort to axe these dangerous bills.
As WordPress.org’s Jane Wells puts it:
Using WordPress to blog, to publish, to communicate things online that once upon a time would have been relegated to an unread private journal (or simply remained unspoken, uncreated, unshared) makes you a part of one of the biggest changes in modern history: the democratization of publishing and the independent web. Every time you click Publish, you are a part of that change, whether you are posting canny political insight or a cat that makes you LOL. How would you feel if the web stopped being so free and independent? I’m concerned right about the bills that threaten to do this, and as a participant in one of the biggest changes in modern history, you should be, too.
So take a couple minutes to watch this video about the effect SOPA and PIPA will have on the internet:
