A blog post I wrote for work at http://hastac.org/blogs/ruby-sinreich/2012/01/17/stop-censorship-stop-pipasopa
HASTAC is joining with others around the U.S. and globally on the Internet to protest the outrageous SOPA/PIPA bill that – yes – is still making its way through Congress right now. Major organizations such Wikipedia,Mozilla, and many others are participating in a one-day black out, while others including Google, are using their home pages, as are we, to protest and inform about these frightening bills that would have a chilling impact on intellectual freedom and digital interaction. We were heartened by the news that the Obama administration is opposing the bills and so we chose to to stay online but with a banner on the site, but clearly the debate is far from over. The potential implications of this corporate and politically-motivated censorship upon academic freedom, especially digital scholarship, are simply staggering.
So many others have covered the issues around SOPA/PIPA so well (and my own understanding of the legislation is so comparatively tiny) that I won’t bother to rehash them but will link to some of the best below. Thanks to HASTACers Gerry Canavan for posting about SOPA last month and Alex Leavitt for today’s post about how SOPA opposition galvanized on Reddit. I highly recommend this 4-minute video that explains the legislation, including an important update at the end.
Link fest:
- Wikipedia’s anti-SOPA backout
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout - Reddit: A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP
http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html - Artists and musician oppose PROTECT-IP http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa
- How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa
- danah boyd: We need to talk about piracy (but we must stop SOPA first)
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2012/01/17/stop-sopa.html - Slate: The Internet’s Intolerable Acts
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technocracy/2011/12/ stop_online_piracy_act_and_protect_ip_act_a_pair_of_bills_that_threaten_ internet_freedom_.single.html - Quite a lot of excellent posts about SOPA from Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/tag/sopa
- The White House: Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/%21/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet