TODAY’S INTERNET BLACKOUT: WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE, WORDPRESS, REDDIT AND MORE PROTEST SOPA/PIPA
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
On Monday we published a piece declaring victory against the government’s war on free speech on the Internet; looks like we were a little hasty in that regard. While this past weekend’s “shelving” of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the removal of a key provision were encouraging, Reuters has reported that the House plans to take up the bill once again in February. And even though the White House has promised to veto SOPA and PIPA (the Protect IP Act — the Senate’s version, up for vote on January 24th) if passed by Congress, President Obama said the same thing about the National Defense Authorization Act and then signed it into law, trampling all over the constitutional rights of every American.
Today many major sites including Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, WordPress and more have gone dark or are showing censored content to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA. On December 14th of last year, MetalSucks “Censored” all of our posts to raise awareness of the same, and while we will not be doing that again today we are no less passionate about this cause and will do anything we can to raise awareness.
Once again, to be clear, MetalSucks’ opposition to SOPA and PIPA should in no way be misconstrued to mean that we support piracy. We oppose these bills because as written they would completely fail to stop piracy while trampling all over our first amendment rights and stifling innovation in the process. The big corporations who are backing these bills, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA, which includes the major labels) and Motion Picture Association of America, lack the technical knowledge to understand how these bills would threaten the architecture of the Internet and stifle innovation.
For more information, watch the above video or read this fairly balanced primer on the current status of SOPA/PIPA and all the connected issues.
But don’t just sit there and get angry: TAKE ACTION! Email your Congressperson and tell them how you feel.
