Internet Blackout
Many of you will no doubt come across websites today that are blacked out. Many members of the internet are on strike to bring awareness to two impending bills before the US Congress and the Senate. They are SOPA (stop online Piracy act) and PIPA (Protect IP act). Though most support the enforcement of copyright laws as these names imply these bills if they become law are not quite what the name implies, they are much more complex. Wikipedia has a good explanation of why they do not support the bills. CBS news has an article on why they support the bills.
What do you think?
One thought on “Internet Blackout”
Beth,
The SOPA Strike was quite the massive happening. I was slow catching up to the news. But once finals were over I was able to look into both sides. For a while it was easy to see both sides of the discussion. But eventually I could only side with the protesters. These bills seemed to do more harm with restrictions than beneficial good. Sadly, you are right. Some things are vastly more complicated than they seem.
I noticed Wikipedia, Google, and Icanhazcheezburger were altered on January 18th. What a world wide rally that was. I saw on the nightly news that Senators were being bombarded for weeks prior to the actual vote! It became a very small world that day. I hope both bills remains shelved. I am not a fan of the open ended ‘indefinitely’ timetable.
Laura Holifield
http://holifieldlauraedm310.blogspot.com/
Elementary Ed. student, EDM310 with Dr. Strange