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For 24 hours that began at midnight tonight, I will join Wikipedia and sites like Reddit in protest over pending legislation in Congress.
The bill is known as SOPA–the “Stop Online Piracy Act–backed by Hollywood and the music industry, but opposed by most of Silicon Valley. SOPA is aimed ostensibly at protecting copyrighted material, but as drafted threatens to choke off the Internet in much the way China does now–by killing the source of oxygen.
In its worst proposed form, SOPA would require U.S. search engines, advertising networks and other providers to withhold their services to certain “flagged” sites, so that users couldn’t find them and payment processors couldn’t fund them. That’s right: Someone ELSE would get to decide what YOU can and cannot see. This is a flagrant violation of free speech and free association rights, and it must not be allowed to move forward.
Pushback from companies such as Google and Facebook and ordinary citizens has stalled SOPA, with its backers promising to revise the bill’s more controversial aspects. But you know how these things go. With big industry behind the bill, it will take a massive public outcry to kill it. I can tell you this: If SOPA is passed in its original form, or even some of the suggested “compromises,” sites like YouTube would go dark immediately. Indeed, this very FB community we have built, and which I hope you enjoy daily, could be shut down by a single complaint of copyright infringement that “flags” it.
There are already laws in place to deal with copyright infringement within the U.S., but so far no effective law to deal with overseas sites. The answer, however, is not to impose censorship at home.
So that is why I’m going dark, for a day. Please share this message with your online friends, and help us stop unAmerican censorship of the net. If you’d like to send your senator a message, sign the on-line petition through the link on the left of this blog post.
I’ll see you all Thursday at midnight. Live long and FREELY,
–GHT
Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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Seal up your lips and give no words but mum.
Equip, Reload. Do violence.
Watch for Gerry.
NO! Wait I am not going to spam this thread!
http://nooooooooooooooo.com/ Bah!
We shall hold this as testimony against SOPA!
(And the irony of using Starwars too)
From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war.
You'd be surprised how many people follow Takei on facebook, Biccat.
That said, it won't make as big an impact as Wikipedia or Reddit.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
biccat wrote:Frankly, I don't check up on Mr. Takai on a daily, or even weekly, basis.
I suspect his 24-hour absence isn't going to make much of an impression.
That's why he's doing it as part of a greater internet campaign, and calling on others to contribute, like he explained in the quoted section from the OP. Mad props on the reading skills there, biccat.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote:That's why he's doing it as part of a greater internet campaign, and calling on others to contribute, like he explained in the quoted section from the OP. Mad props on the reading skills there, biccat.
Well, in that case I apparently protested SOPA by going dark on Facebook and Twitter yesterday too.
George Takei has managed to do what William Shatner did. The best part is I think both of them know it and play off each other, but only pretend to hate each others guts.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/19 15:53:35
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