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SOPA internet censorship bill

I've been watching XDA for a few minutes. They're getting 20 - 30 names per second on their pledge. If that rate keeps up they will be back online in a couple of hours. They only need about 10k more names at 11:53am eastern time to reach their goal of 50k.

Edit: It actually looks like that XDA will be back up before 1 o'clock eastern time right now. They only need about 5k more names.

Edit2: Well XDA is back. Just under 5 hours for over 50,000 names. That's pretty impressive.
 
Wordpress has turned off freshly pressed and has allowed us bloggers to turn blackout our blogs .Bloggers have freedom to protest now . (A choice of blackout ,banner or nothing ) :)
 
I find it interesting that Wikipedia blocked their full site but left their mobile site operating without restriction. I've been able to check info today on Wikipedia's mobile site.

The one problem I have with this protest is that it's not being handled correctly. Blocking all of these sites impacts citizens in general... it doesn't have nearly the direct impact on Congress. Members of Congress don't typically research... they have staff who do the research for them. And most of their staffers can easily go to the Library of Congress for the information they need.

All blocking these sites really accomplishes is inconveniencing citizens... and, hopefully, annoying them to the point of complaining to Congress about SOPA/PIPA. And as I think EM has previously stated, all Congress will ultimately do is drop the SOPA/PIPA acts and quietly attach them as riders to other bills. They do this on a regular basis to sneak things past the American public. The bigger question is how to we stop them from doing that?
 
It isn't just being aware, people need to take action. I have signed Google's petition. Every signature helps, and everyone that cares about freedom on the Internet should sign at least 1 of the petitions also.

Not that politicians care about what we want anyways, all they usually care about is their bribes from lobbyist groups like the MPAA, but at least we can hope that with enough support they will listen and do the right thing!

Google's petition here, don't forget to share the page on all of your social networks!
 
Martimus said:
I find it interesting that Wikipedia blocked their full site but left their mobile site operating without restriction. I've been able to check info today on Wikipedia's mobile site.

The one problem I have with this protest is that it's not being handled correctly. Blocking all of these sites impacts citizens in general... it doesn't have nearly the direct impact on Congress. Members of Congress don't typically research... they have staff who do the research for them. And most of their staffers can easily go to the Library of Congress for the information they need.

All blocking these sites really accomplishes is inconveniencing citizens... and, hopefully, annoying them to the point of complaining to Congress about SOPA/PIPA. And as I think EM has said stated, all Congress will ultimately do is drop the SOPA/PIPA acts and quietly attach them as riders to other bills. They do this on a regular basis to sneak things past the American public. The bigger question is how to we stop them from doing that?
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Blocking the webpages has a special significance. Yes, it only harms the average citizen. But the American populous is a very reactive bunch. Rarely are we ever proactive. So the blackout was to show what is to come, to activate the reactive side in all of us. There are only a few of the websites that participated in the blackout that actually tried to explain this. XDA did a poor job, but at least attempted and directed people to the EFF, which did a better job. TheOatmeal.com blacked out in protest of SOPA / PIPA - The Oatmeal had a funny little GIF that did a decent job. Google did the worst job, by not explaining anything and just blacking out the Google logo.

But that was the point, I thought. To get people motivated now, instead of when it's too late. But yes, it will probably be put into a rider on a defense spending bill or something like that. But not until after elections, I'm sure.
 
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jerofld said:
Blocking the webpages has a special significance. Yes, it only harms the average citizen. But the American populous is a very reactive bunch. Rarely are we ever proactive. So the blackout was to show what is to come, to activate the reactive side in all of us. There are only a few of the websites that participated in the blackout that actually tried to explain this. XDA did a poor job, but at least attempted and directed people to the EFF, which did a better job. TheOatmeal.com blacked out in protest of SOPA / PIPA - The Oatmeal had a funny little GIF that did a decent job. Google did the worst job, by not explaining anything and just blacking out the Google logo.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but, in my opinion, blocking web pages is a knee-jerk reaction to a much bigger problem. Most people will not do much beyond complaining about the inconvenience.

jerofld said:
But that was the point, I thought. To get people motivated now, instead of when it's too late. But yes, it will probably be put into a rider on a defense spending bill or something like that. But not until after elections, I'm sure.
Click to expand...

Whether it happens now, next year, or the year after is likely immaterial. It will, in all likelihood, happen. What we, as a nation, need to do is to close these Congressional loopholes and that typically takes a constitutional amendment. As the character "V" once said: "People should not be afraid of their Government. Government should be afraid of the people". Congress isn't afraid of us... personally I think that Congress does not particularly pay attention to us.

To stop bad legislation like SOPA/PIPA, we first need to put fear back into Congress. That, in and of itself, will be difficult to do until people become more willing to rock the boat. How do we do this? Maybe we start by voting 1/2 of Congress out of office in 2012... Granted this might not initially get their attention but if we did this again at the next Congressional election, I suspect they'd get the message.

Revolution is an ugly thing... but sometimes all it takes is a well placed wake-up call!
 
baillou2 said:
Yeah, it's funny how our elected representatives are supposed to "REPRESENT US", and yet we have to mount massive protests to convince them to not screw us over.
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It's pretty ridiculous, I called my local rep and this is what they told me. "Thank you for giving us your opinion on SOPA, blah blah blah, we appreciate your opinion, and are going to do our best to listen to the opinions from the community. We neither support SOPA, and are not against the bill either. We will try our best to make a decision on what you have to say."

So basically, they say that they will actually listen. But It's likely they will just ignore it, and go with their personal opinion on it. It's days like this that cause me to have absolutely no hope, or pride in our legal system.
 
B2L said:
It's pretty ridiculous, I called my local rep and this is what they told me. "Thank you for giving us your opinion on SOPA, blah blah blah, we appreciate your opinion, and are going to do our best to listen to the opinions from the community. We neither support SOPA, and are not against the bill either. We will try our best to make a decision on what you have to say."

So basically, they say that they will actually listen. But It's likely they will just ignore it, and go with their personal opinion on it. It's days like this that cause me to have absolutely no hope, or pride in our legal system.
Click to expand...

Was that a recorded response? :eek::confused::rolleyes:
 
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