We're not in prison, so you can feel free to drop the SOPA. You hear that, Congress? DROP THE SOPA.
Enough with the lame jokes. I know you're at least vaguely interested in using the Internet, as you wouldn't be reading this otherwise. Maybe you just pop on once or twice a week to check your Facebook or maybe you spend five hours of your nine-hour work day surfing in ten-minute blocks, I can't tell that much, but what I can tell you is that SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT-IP Act) would probably kill whatever you're doing.
To take a large topic and sift it into a very simple statement, either of these Acts would block "objectionable" websites. By "objectionable" I don't mean weird random sites like Chicks and Cows or Five Year Plan to Getting Megan Fox, I mean Wikipedia, I mean I Can Haz Cheezburger, DeviantArt, anything that might have copyrighted content, however altered, or even link to copyrighted content. By the way, about everything is copyrighted.
To quote Stop American Censorship:
The US state department constantly speaks out against internet censorship in other countries. Pressure them to speak out against America’s new domestic censorship system.
Tomorrow, a long list of websites will be going black in protest (including those listed above here). If you have your own website, you may consider doing the same. Maybe warning a couple people. I'll be hiding my blog and my Facebook in the morning.
Tomorrow may be the most productive work day in a decade. It may be a day that changes how the government looks at the Internet. Or it may just be a day when we remember how to play Solitaire. If you've got the time (and without Wikipedia, you just might) drop Congress a note. You can do that here, if you want. They've even got one written out for you.
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| courtesy of http://go-devil-dante.deviantart.com |
