Hello all, it's been a while, but finally people are freaking the hell out over attacks on the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. Personally, I've been freaking out for a while, you might have read my previous post ( http://zhir0w.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/how-much-are-you-willing-to-pay/ ) but if not feel free to click the link and check it out.
Anyway the Internet was in an uproar yesterday and still today (sorta) when alot of sites (Google, Wikipedia,Reddit, BoingBoing, etc...) went Black, to demonstrate what the world would be like without their presence because of this upcoming bill that may become law of the land. Many people took it upon themselves to find workarounds to bypass the blackouts and go directly to the sites... But, that's kinda the point.... sure yesterday was a little inconvenient, but imagine if that was the "new normal" as they say. You might not care now, but the majority of things the average person does or shares has some form of copyrighted material, be it a picture, a movie, a song or a funny video. Under this new legislation all of that would be outlawed, sites would be afraid to host anything and all that sharing you like to do, yeah, it'd be gone. You can help discourage our idiotic 'elected' officials understand your displeasure by contacting them after a little research on your part. I've gathered a list of informative links (though note, if this law goes into effect they'll all be broken shortly thereafter) that have:
Infographics ( http://www.vizworld.com/2012/01/sopa-infographic/ ) because a picture speaks a thousand words
synopsis ( http://www.techie-gurus.com/off-topic-discussions-71/all-about-sopa-bill-wants-cripple-your-internet-very-soon-5913/ )
and some sites that offer encouragement about your part in all this ( http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/help-stop-sopa-pipa/ ).
There are bullet points ( http://www.craigslist.org/about/SOPA ) Everyone loves those!
And a Lifehacker article ( http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet ) because it's Lifehacker, Duh....
I'm kinda a paranoid digital rights wonk about these things since the Internet is one of the few future things I find useful. I love information, especially free information (I especially love free information relating to cat videos...) and I hope you do too. The sites listed in this post have links to petitions and digital messages to your congressional representative, it's actually easy to voice your unhappiness, if you ARE unhappy about it that is, if you aren't feel free to respond and elucidate us on why, I know I'd like to hear.
