Do you know what SOPA is? SOPA is the acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act. Many sites are against it, including Twitter, Google, Reddit, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Zynga and Facebook. Below is the beginning of Lifehacker’s article that helps to explain what it’s about and includes a short video, some additional links such as American Censorship Day website which was November 16, 2011, how to get in touch with your congressperson and a link so that you can get to know the bill.
All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet
SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it’s going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here’s how it works and what you can do about it.
How Does SOPA Work, and Why Should I Care?
The idea behind SOPA sounds reasonable. It came about in order to try to snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited about the many people downloading their product without their permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn’t really matter whether you’re in support of piracy, against it, or just don’t care. SOPA makes it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simple capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement.
(Image via americancensorship.org)
This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J
