SOPA & PIPA – The digital blackout
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If you haven’t read about SOPA and PIPA then it’s certainly worth doing so. The question is, should YOU get involved in the intervention of the passing of SOPA and PIPA?
The fact that you are reading this post tells me you’re a blog reader. From this I can make the assumption that you’re an avid Facebook user, a user of Twitter and a regular user of YouTube too. If you’re anything like me then you probably have 500+ friends online, organise most of your social and business life on social networks and check your notifications at least 5 times a day either on your laptop, workstation, mobile phone or tablet. Perhaps you love discovering new music, reading about the latest fashion trends, or simply enjoy browsing round on a journey with no purpose. Sound familiar? If so the passing of this bill will directly affect your daily life.
This act to control the internet by the US is the first step in a scheme to regulate, control and censor the freedom of the internet by powers that don’t fully understand the internet and its architecture. The passing of these bills will see free use of websites severely limited and potentially completely suffocated under a blanket of law will oppress the freedom to share information and content; the key principle upon which the immeasurable success and power of the information super highway has been built.
This bills are portrayed as a must-have measurement to stop fraudsters online and the widespread committing of copyright infringement which is costing the music, game and film industries billions each year.
In a public protest, the big hitters of the digital world which include the likes of Google and Wikipedia are part of the digital blackout. Temporary shutting down of websites for a 12 hour period show users a “through the looking glass” at what the worlds internet may look like should these bills be passed. Users attempting to access these sites are forced to see a blacked out version, a clear protest which hits home hard with a strong political statement. Wikipedia makes its statement very clear with the bold “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” The user-generated news site Reddit provides visitors with multiple options to sign petitions and gives its own users a version of the anti-SOPA/PIPA blackout.
The blackout is a bold, effective way to get the two bills into the public eye. It is of paramount importance that this news goes mainstream so that people outside the tech industry will be made fully aware of just how much their everyday lives could be affected by these acts. Google, Reddit and Wikipedia aren’t the only companies shutting its digital doors according to SOPAStrike.com. It has a full list of the blackout participants.
This is not the full article… I have gone on to raise my own personal concerns and give a breakdown of the two bills on the link below.
https://www.found.co.uk/blog/sopa-pipa-continued/
Please give it a read and spread awareness about SOPA and PIPA.
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