As you are all aware, a recent bill by Congress, known as SOPA, is trying to censor the internet. What may have started out as an attempt to stop illegal pirating of music to protect the copyrights of Hollywood musicians and artists has become censorship of free speech which resembles oppressive nations that the US openly scrutinizes for such censorship.
What really concerns me about this bill is how few people know about it. I had to tell my self-proclaimed "I know everything about everything" older sister about it, and as an devout Google-r and Facebook-er, she should really know about this. It seems to me that only people who are really interested in politics or the news or have enough free time to muck around the depths of the internet are aware of this. Tweens trying to post pictures of their future husbands Justin Bieber and Taylor Lautner--don't know about this bill. Teens tweeting their favorite song lyrics or posting a funny meme to their friends' wall--don't know about this bill. Young adults sharing articles and posting philosophical quotes to their Facebooks--don't know about this bill. What they also don't know, is that they won't be able to do any of these things under this bill.
One of my favorite websites, Reddit (which I do not recommend going to if you're a major procrastinator like me because it has so many wondrous and distracting things...), has take the responsibility upon its whole community of users to fight congress and keep this bill from passing. So far, they have launched a boycott of the host GoDaddy.com because they were a creator a supporter of SOPA. After Reddit got tons of users and companies to switch their domains away from GoDaddy, GoDaddy changed its view on SOPA and now publicly opposes it.
Through Reddit's influence, other companies like Nintendo, EA, and Sony (who also received a menacing letter from the hacking group Anonymous, basically threatening to destroy the company) also dropped or at least mitigated their support for SOPA.
Taking inspiration from Reddit's leadership and action on this issue, many other websites have decided to take a stance against SOPA through a self-induced blackout. This means that for at least a day, the website will be inaccessible to users except for a message that will appear on the homepage telling users about the dangers of SOPA and telling them to contact their congressman. Possible websites to do this include: Facebook, Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, Twitter, and maybe more. A popular website, Tumblr, has already included a pop-up message on their page with information about SOPA and successfully initiated almost 90,000 calls to congress from its users.
I can't help but think that congress underestimated the American public and avid internet users. It seems to me like they thought that this bill would pass through legislation unnoticed and they could continue doing what ever they want. This probably comes from their complete lack of understanding about the internet. One congressman described that internet as a series of tubes. Not only that, they have no internet experts and to give a perfect comparison, "it's like going into surgery and performing an operation with no nurses or doctors." However, this bill has erupted a major response from the internet community and it is amazing to see that there are more people on the internet than trolls and Justin Bieber fangirls and they're taking action--and I'm really interested to see what will happen.
There have been rumors that the bill will be debated on January 24. This is also rumored to be the date of the blackout. Let's hope that congress realizes that 95% of the country they legislate for is against them.
Do you think SOPA will pass? Will there be congressman so stubborn and money hungry to pass the bill even with so much opposition? What would happen if it did pass? Do you think Obama will veto it if it gets to him? Would a blackout of popular websites be effective? Would it communicate the right message to users? Have you noticed that most news stations (at least our local ones that I keep an eye on, anyway) have not even mentioned SOPA? Why do you think that is?
I definitely think there will be some stubborn money hungry congressmen that try to pass the bill regardless of the opposition. But, I feel like it won't pass, or even if it does it wouldn't really work because there will always be some way around the law, especially with today's technology and crazy computer hackers. The blackout would probably be somewhat effective because people log onto Facebook and Twitter all the time every day, and if they were all informed of SOPA, then I'm sure many would take action.
ReplyDeleteI know it's easy to say "Oh, it's so crazy and unconstitutional...It won't pass," but we do have to consider the fact that this bill was convincing enough for someone to even introduce it and for it to gain as much popularity as it has with the legislature. Additionally, we all thought that the NDAA had absolutely no way of passing because it clearly violates the 6th amendment...yet it passed with Obama's signature.
ReplyDeleteAnd I totally agree that SOPA wouldn't really work--it would probably destroy our internet as we know it, but someone can make a new one (I say this like it would simple, but really it would be quite tedious and bothersome), find a hack code around it, blah blah blah. But it's scary to imagine what other things they might be considering if they are currently wanting to censor the internet...
I think SOPA will eventually pass. Considering NDAA passed Congress has stopped caring about what the American people want. As we've said multiple websites are blacking out to protest SOPA, but what do congressmen care? They can hardly use the internet. The subject is too divided and because the supporters are most likely supporting individual campaigns, especially the ones up for re-election this year.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject maybe that's why so much is being passed, or attempted to be passed now. If the Obama Administration can appear to be doing something productive they can theoretically earn votes.
UGH BLOGGER SUCKS AND DELETED MY COMMENT >:( ok well i'll try to remember what i was gonna say.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know what goes through Congress's brain anymore... and obviously they don't really care what people think anymore either.. As much as I think this shouldn't pass odds are, which how dumb congress has been lately it will. Congress really sucks right now & Obama is selling himself out. Sad truth :'( Also midterms suck!!! blah :(
One thing that would have allowed it to pass (now being "shelved") would have been the ignorance of the people. During google's blackout it gained 7 million signatures in its petition which is amazing considering how ignorant people were about SOPA and PIPA before. I was so glad that Wikipedia decided to join the Blackout. These strikes are what were able to postpone the bill.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I didn't understand was why Youtube didn't participate. If this were to pass youtube would be one of the most affected sites. Every lyric video, every unofficial music video, every movie clip, every vlog with a song in the background would be gone. If SOPA gets passed, everyone that doesn't know about it will quickly figure it out and riots would erupt because the internet would go to poop.
The blackout did raise awareness. SOPA went from being something young college kids complained about on the Internet to something that was talked about, tweeted about, Facebooked, carrier pigeoned. Perhaps the blackout will make more people active in the fight against SOPA. While its intent is to protect ownership, in actuality it severely limits the abilities of the general public to use the Internet in the way they've become accustomed to.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that this bill is dead. Paying for music does not sound like a fun future to live in. But, the blackout was a surprisingly good day. I actually got things done because I had no Reddit to get distracted on.
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