SOPA
Stop Online Piracy Act.*
I don’t know enough about it, yet. I do know that bloggers are one population that could be seriously impacted.
You may have noticed yesterday that many tech websites were either blacked out or carried links to information about SOPA. The photo above is what wordpress.com (hosts this blog) looked like.
This post, however, is not just about SOPA.
Today, I am thankful to live in a society that allows, encourages, and embraces protest.
There are many countries around the world that would not tolerate such a protest. People are jailed everyday because they marched against a proposed government action. There are societies that would not allow the sharing of information about the potential impact of a new law. There are places, not too far away, where the government controls not only the law, but the dissemination of information about the law. In some places still today, disagreeing with the government is justification for that body to kill its own citizens.
The internet may have gone dark yesterday, but many were enlightened because of it. How great is that?
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*Interested in learning more about SOPA before it goes back before Congress next week? Click HERE to read the actual text of the bill as registered with the Library of Congress.
For additional opinions… THIS link will take you to an Op-Ed piece from Mashable; one man’s opinion on the dangers of SOPA. CNNMoney explains the pros and cons in THIS article, even though their parent company, Time Warner, supports the bill. Although nearly everyone agrees that content rights need to be protected, it is the possibilities of going too far that many are worried about. in THIS November NY Times editorial, the newspaper explains.
