If your life includes the internet at all, then you have likely heard of the SOPA and PIPA bills that if passed by Congress, could essentially ruin your online experience forever. The initial goal of them was to stop foreign websites from hosting and distributing pirated works, but as these bills have evolved, the world has realized that they will do much more than that. Both website owners and their users will face some pretty severe punishments should you be found to at all be involved in distributing copyrighted material. Now, at first glance, that sentence probably doesn’t scare most of you, however, once you read the vague and grey mess of these bills, you may realize that you are probably already violating in some way.
As you cruise around the web today, you will notice that sites like Google and Mozilla have “blacked out” their front pages to show that they are firmly against both of these bills. While I cannot and will not tell anyone how to act when it comes to the political environment, I will say that if you are not familiar with PIPA and SOPA, that you educate yourself today. This is serious stuff, and as with any major political movement, it is in your best interest to learn all that you can.
And I fully understand that this is not directly related to Android, but in the big scheme of things, this site and every other tech site that you read will be affected by this.
Worth Reading:
- Mashable – Why SOPA is Dangerous
- Google – SOPA and PIPA overview and who is against it
- EFF – A brief but thorough overview
- Wikipedia – Q&A session
- Email your Senators
And if those aren’t enough to get you going, I suggest you Google it. 🙂
This post was last modified on January 13, 2020 10:20 am