Today's OneWord: SOPA
There will be no OneWord today as oneword.com is currently down. The reason for it being down, however, is incredibly important. OneWord and thousands of other sites including Wikipedia, Reddit, and Boing Boing are participating in a 24 hour blackout in protest of the online piracy bills SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).
For those of you who aren't in the loop, SOPA and PIPA were written and are supported by politicians and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) to combat the issue of online piracy and counterfeiting. However, the way that SOPA and PIPA are written threatens to violate freedom of expression, disrupt cybersecurity, and stifle internet innovation by introducing a series of provisions that allows the American judicial system to shut down sites or cut off funding at its own jurisdiction, without due process or trial. The anti-circumvention provision has also been added to shut down sites that provide users information to help them get around what is essentially a censorship mechanism.
This legislation may be intended to stop a serious problem, but remember the proverb, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." SOPA and PIPA, while attempting to create jobs and save revenue, would ultimately destroy economic innovation especially among small businesses and entrepreneurs. They also would force sites to monitor every user's content, which is nigh on impossible in some cases, in case copyright infringement occurs. Venture capitalists would not invest, and creative work would completely disappear. We cannot afford to lose a free, global Internet.
Please act now by contacting your state representatives and Congressmen and urging them to oppose this dangerous legislation. Even I, a lowly blogger, could be negatively affected by these overreaching bills. PIPA could be brought up for a vote as early as January 24th, and SOPA could be re-introduced in early February. Even though the White House has vocally disapproved of these bills, one can never know what will happen in the future. For more information, please visit the link below:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech
Let's keep our Internet free and open.
Sincerely,
Belinda Roddie
For those of you who aren't in the loop, SOPA and PIPA were written and are supported by politicians and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) to combat the issue of online piracy and counterfeiting. However, the way that SOPA and PIPA are written threatens to violate freedom of expression, disrupt cybersecurity, and stifle internet innovation by introducing a series of provisions that allows the American judicial system to shut down sites or cut off funding at its own jurisdiction, without due process or trial. The anti-circumvention provision has also been added to shut down sites that provide users information to help them get around what is essentially a censorship mechanism.
This legislation may be intended to stop a serious problem, but remember the proverb, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." SOPA and PIPA, while attempting to create jobs and save revenue, would ultimately destroy economic innovation especially among small businesses and entrepreneurs. They also would force sites to monitor every user's content, which is nigh on impossible in some cases, in case copyright infringement occurs. Venture capitalists would not invest, and creative work would completely disappear. We cannot afford to lose a free, global Internet.
Please act now by contacting your state representatives and Congressmen and urging them to oppose this dangerous legislation. Even I, a lowly blogger, could be negatively affected by these overreaching bills. PIPA could be brought up for a vote as early as January 24th, and SOPA could be re-introduced in early February. Even though the White House has vocally disapproved of these bills, one can never know what will happen in the future. For more information, please visit the link below:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech
Let's keep our Internet free and open.
Sincerely,
Belinda Roddie
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