STOP SOPA Blackout Day
Several large internet service providers are blacking out their own sites today in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which purports to combat copyright infringement by shutting down any site which hosts or links to supposedly copyrighted material. Just to make it clear: if 11-year-old Suzy uploads a vid of herself singing a Justin Bieber song, all of YouTube goes down. If you link to Suzy's YouTube vid on your DW/LJ, DW and LJ go down. You have to admire the scorched earth of the thing.
Encyclopedia giant Wikipedia, popular news-sharing site reddit, browser pioneer Mozilla, photo-sharing favorite Twitpic and even ICanHazCheezburger.com are blocking access to content throughout Wednesday, symbolizing what the bill may allow content creators to do to sites they accuse of copyright infringement. Other websites, including Google, are expressing solidarity with the protests by featuring anti-SOPA content on home pages.
Next up: Repeal the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which, among other things permits the indefinite incarceration or execution of American citizens without trial by the US military, when ordered by the Commander-in-Chief. We've always been able to indefinitely incarcerate and execute other nations' citizens, so this was a first for us. What a step up! Congrats! Welcome to the US Empire!
Christ Jesus.