We Need to Stop SOPA & PIPA

SOPA is not something the precocious PIPA uses to get clean. Rather, it's a pernicious set of about-to-be-laws in the United States that will limit, if not outright prohibit, the (cue booming voice) Internet as we know it. A lot of people are writing, blogging, talking, and otherwise rabble-rousing about this issue and these bills in particular. Wikipedia and Reddit are both promising to go dark soon as a form of protest to alert their users of the importance of this pending legislation and the detriment both will likely be for anyone posting just about anything on the Web.

Here's the statement from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation:  

“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. "This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

And Wiki is not alone - Reddit, Google and others will be either broadcasting opposition to SOPA or blacking out their sites for a limited duration of time as a signal to the rest of the world what messing with Internet freedoms could result in if taken too far. I believe them when they say SOPA goes too far.

Reddit, the community of the moment on the Web, has this to say on its most recent blog entry:

The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation.

It's time to act, even if you're simply content using the Internet to watch Hulu and check your email. At its core, this is an issue of the interests of the few (corporations) being trumped up as more important than the freedom of the many.

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Here is a summary of what SOPA aims to do and would likely result in for the Internet and its users.