SOPA

sarah_ep

Surprised no one has brought up SOPA and the SOPA blackout today.

Thoughts?

americancensorship.org

ETA: List of blackout sites

Wikipedia
Google
Craigslist
Mozilla
Boing Boing
Reddit
ArsTechnica
Wired
The Verge
O'Reilly Radar
Tech Crunch
MoveOn.Org
WordPress
Xkcd
Fark
4Chan
imgur
Post Secret

I am sure there are some missing here.

fbmandy55

I about freaked when I saw wiki was gone for the day. It made me realize how much I depended on it!!

Don't censor the web!

mikajoanow

I hope everyone tries to get on Wiki today just so they can see what it would be like without it.

Bahet

I've been signing petitions, posting about it on FB, etc. It's amazing how many people don't know anything about this or think it's only going to stop movie/music pirates and won't affect them. If this passes Facebook, this site, Twitter, Wiki, etc will all be either gone or radically changed..

castadiva

I must confess that I know little about it, but having had personal experience of IP theft and copyright issues, I can understand why something is being done. Without knowing the details, I can't say whether this is the right way to do it, but these are serious issues that do need desperately to be addressed.

Bahet

I must confess that I know little about it, but having had personal experience of IP theft and copyright issues, I can understand why something is being done. Without knowing the details, I can't say whether this is the right way to do it, but these are serious issues that do need desperately to be addressed.

I have absolutely no problem at all with legislation to stop piracy, identity theft, etc. But this just goes too far. It's like trying to stop drunk driving by banning motor vehicles.

Basically, anything that was posted that was not your own would be a problem. I didn't make this avatar so it wouldn't be allowed.

castadiva

I must confess that I know little about it, but having had personal experience of IP theft and copyright issues, I can understand why something is being done. Without knowing the details, I can't say whether this is the right way to do it, but these are serious issues that do need desperately to be addressed.

I have absolutely no problem at all with legislation to stop piracy, identity theft, etc. But this just goes too far. It's like trying to stop drunk driving by banning motor vehicles.

Basically, anything that was posted that was not your own would be a problem. I didn't make this avatar so it wouldn't be allowed.

Ouch! I'd better get reading...

macpatti

Now that everyone's all fired up about the legitimately bad SOPA, I contend that government actions this bad and far worse are happening all the time, and it'd be good to act out on all of them. Don't be more outraged about Facebook and Wikipedia than you are about human beings dying.

TheRoadDog

I wish I cared, but I don't. It's so convoluted. They are not going to keep the internet in check or the user off-line no matter what they do. There will always be a way around or through any obstacles.

Survived most of my life without the internet. When internet becomes to cumbesome for me, I will log off and go outside and do something contructive.

dragonbait0126

I wish I cared, but I don't. It's so convoluted. They are not going to keep the internet in check or the user off-line no matter what they do. There will always be a way around or through any obstacles.

Survived most of my life without the internet. When internet becomes to cumbesome for me, I will log off and go outside and do something contructive.

The problem isn't that there won't be a way around it though. It's that it puts the burden of prevention on the website itself and if there is 1 small violation, the entire website could be shut down. So, MFP could be shut down because of pictures that are posted in the forum because of copyright infringement. An entire blog site could be shut down because 1 blogger posted 1 thing that was in a violation of a copyright. Many individual websites, such as this one, just simply don'thave the manpower to be able to monitor every single peice of content on it 24/7/365. Also, a person found to be in violation could receive 5 years in prison. For posting a link or a picture. How ridiculous is that? Hell, Michael Jackson's doctor didn't even get 5 years in prison. It also includes internet censorship. Which means that instead of having access to all of the information from everywhere around the world, there would be websitesthat we would be banned from viewing because they don't follow U.S. policy even though they are not U.S. based sites/companies. It would be comporable to what China has done. While I understand the intent of the bill, it's going about it in the wrong way. Many of the original supporters of the bill are backing out. They are finally realizing that the way it is currently written is cumbersome and actually does, to some extent, prevent knowledge sharing and freedom of speech.

TheRoadDog

Freedom of Speech is an illusion. You can't say what you want, whenever you want.

adrian_indy

Freedom of Speech is an illusion. You can't say what you want, whenever you want.

Especially the truth.

Bahet

Freedom of Speech is an illusion. You can't say what you want, whenever you want.

True. But I haven't had anyone in authority threaten to throw me in prison for 5 years because of my avatar either.