Large chunks of the internet goes black today in protest of SOPA (and PIPA). Anti-piracy laws are all well and good, but not when they propose to kill the internet and free speech in one blow.
And I say this as someone who might one day have a book(s!!!!!! If god is kind, it will be books. Lots and lots of pretty, pretty books) published and be subject to both piracy and need free speech.
Killing the messenger isn’t a solution.
Related articles
- SOPA/PIPA Internet Protest: Web Sites go Black (magsx2.wordpress.com)
- On the Street: Do You Understand SOPA? [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
- Wikipedia, WordPress & 1,500+ Sites to Blackout Tomorrow in Protest: SOPA/PIPA (hudsonhorizons.com)
- Hollywood: SOPA’s DNS Blocking ‘Off The Table’ (mashable.com)
- MAKE Goes Dark in Protest to SOPA/PIPA (makezine.com)
- SOPA Rep Blasts Wikipedia Blackout, Says Law To Go Forward In Feb. (paidcontent.org)
The Internet was nice while it lasted, Sonia. It’s been nice knowing you. Can I have your snail mail address? (SOPA is really a plan hatched to save the Postal System.)
Aloha,
Doug
LOL It would probably do that. There is always email.
I thought the blackout protests were practical, showing you what the internet might be like if unmitigated censorship were brought into the body-politic. I got a little uncomfortable when people tried to pressure Facebook into joining, because protest ought to be voluntary rather than compulsory.
The trouble with FB going black was that lots of people used it to figure what SOPA is. Apparently people had never heard of it before. But I think they could definitely have done more than they did. A big link, a banner, something big and obvious.