Fighting SOPA and PIPA: Blackout Announcement
As you probably know, United States congressmen will soon vote on SOPA and PIPA, the two laws that will likely result in a Great Firewall of the USA. Unlike the Chinese or Australian versions, this one won’t, for the moment, be used to block sites that address issues that the government doesn’t want its citizens to discuss, instead being erected for commercial reasons. It could, of course, quickly develop into something way worse if it will be allowed to pass in its current form, but for the moment it “only” gives copyright holders the power to cut off funding or even completely block the access to any site that they consider to be hosting any of their material, all of this being done through a very one-sided process.
Whatever you may think of “piracy”, this is nothing less than censorship and handing over an enormous amount of power to a small number of wealthy individuals and companies that pull way too many strings as it is. It’s something that can’t be accepted under any circumstances and, as the fact that I’m writing this shows, you hardly have to be a citizen of the United States to oppose it. This is something that many copyright holders and governments all over the world are watching closely and if it passes it could very likely start a wave of legislative changes that will mark the end of the Internet as we know it and the start of an age of draconian censorship, so the entire world must unite and stop it at all costs!
As a result, I’m doing what little I can and joining the blackout against SOPA and PIPA on January 18, so this site will be blacked out between 00:00 and 24:00 EET. If you have any complaints, go to Stop American Censorship for methods of addressing them to those responsible, even if you’re not a citizen of the United States.
Edit: Decided to extend the blackout until 3 AM EET, to match the scheduled end of the protest, at 8 PM EST.
