The purpose of this blackout is to show people, not only in the USA but all over the world, what the internet would be like with these legislations passed. If these were passed, the government and more importantly american companies will have the ability to censor people on the internet. If this were to happen, people no matter what country they live in, could have messages they write deleted, parts of blogs or posts censored, or videos or music they upload taken down by companies through the use of these acts.
Today is very important as it is the next step in the fight for peoples freedom. These acts are the first steps in censoring the internet, which in turn means restricting peoples freedom of speech. The main reason these acts were first created was to help in the fight of piracy, to stop the spread of copyright material. However it is very clear that companies could use these acts to easily take down individual pages or shut down entire sites, censoring people, for their own means but in the name of preventing piracy.
Now a days the internet is more then just casual websites selling products, a large percentage of the population now receive their daily news updates via the internet, whether it be online newspapers, blogs, videos, or podcasts. This one source of information that encompasses all of these different forms of media with be vulnerable to governments and companies imposing their will and censoring things without question.
This really is a very important issue, and I hope people wherever you are can do something to help protest against these acts. I myself have already sent an email to my local government MP with regards to the idea of the british government also wanting to impose acts such as these and how they should not be allowed.
People may think that as they are American policies they won't affect them living in other countries, this however is wrong. Many popular websites used by people internationally are american sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Google, Wikipedia, and Tumblr..... All of these have the potential to be shut down, without question.
This potential passing of these acts is scary stuff, if so far your still a bit unclear about all of this, all you need to know is, that if these acts are passed, people higher up, with more power and money then the normal everyday person, will have the power to close down sites we use daily, because it suits them. What's even more scary is that all these companies need to do to close these sites, whatever their original motives, is to show that although these websites don't have copyright material on them, that they have the 'potential to host this material and enable copyright infringement'.
When you think about it though, every website has the potential to enable copyright infringement! Its ridiculous!
Anyways, I'm sorry if this has sounded a bit like a rant, it is a very important issue I feel though, and I do hope people support the cause in trying to bury these acts. The internet remains one of the last areas of our life where we truly have free speech and I along with many others would like to see it remain that way.
If do you want anymore information on this subject, you can easily google it, otherwise you can follow this link www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM to check out a video explaining what these acts are in more detail, and what you can do to help.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
