SOPA and PIPA: What you can do about it

If you’ve been on the Internet lately, you have noticed that sites like Google, the Wikia community, and Wikipedia have all been “censored”. Equestria Daily and even the blogging site I use, WordPress, have all put censors and black bars on their logos and posts. This is a web-wide protest. Its purpose: to bring attention to two bills promoted by old media companies that is now being taken into consideration by Congress. They are called SOPA and PIPA.

Now a while back I posted a little article on a bill called S.978. That bill and the two bills that are being considered now are actually quite similar. Their goal is to strengthen copyright holders and the government’s power when it comes to online content. SOPA and PIPA will allow the government to shut down any site that has copyrighted material, whether its embedded into the site or even a link in the comments section, to be taken down. The law is so broad that it is essentially the censorship that happens in China. Here’s a video by the Khan Academy explaining this in more detail:

Now, what can you, an average browser in the internet, do about these two bills? If you’re of voting age, contact your representative. You can sign a petition like the one Google has going on their site. If you’re outside the US or not of voting age, spread the news to those who are. These bills are just the beginning. Let’s stop this before something worse comes along.