On January 18th, many Internet sites went dark to protest SOPA. I hope the protest successfully demonstrated to the American People just how inconvenient life is likely to get if SOPA passes.
I did not take my site down, but I made this my main page for that day.
If SOPA passes, then private corporations will be given the power to arbitrarily take down any site they don’t like, without recourse. It’s not a question of IF this law will be abused, but how long it will take to destroy the internet. Sites like this one, which don’t follow Political Correctness, will be unlikely to survive, therefore, if SOPA should pass, I will probably be forced out of this business. Any site that allows comments by the public will be at risk.
This is not the first time the entertainment industry has tried this sort of thing. One can only hope that this time, they will get slapped down hard enough that they will quit trying, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. They will whine a bit, re-group, and try something slightly different.
If you don’t want the US Congress to destroy your 1st Amendment rights, you need to contact your congresscritter, and inform him or her that in order to get your vote next election, he or she must oppose this draconian and misguided law. And please find the sites with lists of corporations that support SOPA, and quit buying from them, permanently. I will be moving this domain registration away from GoDaddy because they support SOPA (their non-pology notwithstanding).
The internet should not be manipulated in this manner just to appease a few entertainment corporations who can’t figure out how to compete in the new marketplace.
Here is a link to a really good TED talk on why SOPA (and PIPA) is a really bad idea: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea
