MFP needs you to oppose SOPA and PIPA today!

heykatieben
heykatieben Posts: 398 Member
edited November 4 in Chit-Chat
Do you love MyFitnessPal? Do you like that you can write what you want in these forums, have a blog and status where you can freely write your thoughts? If so, listen up, MFP needs your help to keep it that way!

Major sites like Wikipedia, Reddit and WordPress are opposing SOPA and PIPA with a blackout today. If you want to take action also, here's the how and why.

Two pieces of legislation - SOPA and PIPA - are being considered in the House and Senate. The majority of congressmen and representatives support these bills. If you oppose these bills, it's important that you contact your senators and representative directly and tell them!

In short, SOPA/PIPA allow the government to take down websites that infringe a copyright, without due process. The reason this is bad is that websites will no longer be able to allow user-submitted content (like these forums, your blog), since it would be easy for you to - even unknowingly - to submit copyrighted content (for instance, anyone posting a Jillian Michaels photo for inspiration). SOPA and PIPA were designed to protect copyrighted content, like movies and books. There are better ways to do that that don't change the nature of the Internet.

Learn more yourself here at these links:

SOPA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopa
PIPA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act

Today, Wikipedia links to a page where you can enter your zip code to get a link to the contact forms for your Senators and Representative. Go here and enter your zip code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness .

Contact your Senators and Representative directly using those forms, to be sure they hear you.

MFP, sorry if this post is against your ToS for not being directly fitness related - I don't know if it is or not, but it seemed important. :)

Replies

  • heykatieben
    heykatieben Posts: 398 Member
    BUMP!
  • heykatieben
    heykatieben Posts: 398 Member
    Why is nobody on MFP talking about SOPA or PIPA?
  • _binary_jester_
    _binary_jester_ Posts: 2,132 Member
    Why is nobody on MFP talking about SOPA or PIPA?
    Hi! Meet this thing called "Search". We have been discussing it.
  • ajfrench
    ajfrench Posts: 323 Member
    I hadn't heard about this. I'll be looking into it.
  • sectornine
    sectornine Posts: 24 Member
    I agree. This is awful legislation. I have never contacted my state or federal representatives, but today is the day that changes. The Wikipedia zip code search makes it easy to find who to contact. It has their Phone, Twitter, and email contact form.

    This really is something everyone should oppose. As a photographer, I do appreciate copy write law and the protection of my creations, but SOPA/PIPA is by no means the answer. Look at the bang up job the government has done with the post office. Do we want these people running the internet?

    Drew
  • heykatieben
    heykatieben Posts: 398 Member
    Good. I was confused that it wasn't at the top of the forums, but glad to hear that the discussion is going on. Thanks. :)
This discussion has been closed.

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