INTERNET : 1 CONGRESS: 0

On January 18^th, Wikipedia, along with an estimated of 7,000 other internet sites including Google, Twitpic, and Reddit successfully coordinated a 24 hour “blackout” of their sites, or blatantly showed their opposition to the new bill titled SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) by posting pictures and links and blacking out either all or some of their content in protest against the anti-piracy bill. Some of the larger social media giants refused to participate in the massive online protest such as Facebook and Twitter, even though a vast number of users on these sites took it upon themselves to show their support of the blackout by “censoring” their individual profiles. Many different courses of action were taken in protest against the new bill, with Wikipedia completely shut down their site for 24 hours, while Google started a petition drive to gather signatures. Over 160 million people saw Wikipedia’s blacked out banner that day, and over 7 million signatures were gathered by Google. 

     

On January 20^th, two days after the massive online protest, U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith took notice of the protests and announced that SOPA was to be shelved until a more agreed upon course of action for the bill was found.

If you don’t already know, SOPA is the bill created by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith to help government and law enforcement agencies better battle against online trafficking and illegal streaming of copyrighted material over the internet. This bill will strengthen our currently existing criminal laws on this matter, as well as giving government the ability to completely remove entire internet domains that infringe on the smallest copyright of any kind. Basically, if this bill were to be passed, it would allow the government to censor whatever they deem necessary on the internet. This applies to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google or any other internet site.

This bill is a major disregard for our freedom of speech rights, as written by our Founding Fathers in the First Amendment of the Constitution –

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

On January 18^th, millions of Americans came together to protect our rights for freedom of speech and on January 20^th, we succeeded. Thanks to everyone who participated in the massive protest against online tyranny, SOPA has been shelved for the time being, allowing us to continue our daily lives on the internet without the fear of constraint.

For more information, visit  this article from the Washington Post.

By Josh Jenkins