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Protesting PIPA / SOPA….I’m torn on how

January 13th, 2012 | Add a Comment

The online protests against PIPA and SOPA will include many people blacking out their blogs. And although I agree…I’m looking for work right now. Can I afford to have my blog go black for an entire day?

I’ll be honest, when my fiancee turned to me last night and said, “That Estelle lady you follow on Twitter is saying you should make your blog black to protest SOPA…” I had no clue what she was talking about. At first.

I quickly realized that SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), was the House version of PIPA (PROTECT IP Act)…are both simply the culmination of all the internet “piracy” rumblings that have been going on in Washington for many years. (by the way…the “PROTECT IP” in PIPA is an acronym itself…PROTECT IP = “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property“. Really? An acronym inside of an acronym? Alphabet soup anyone?)

Yeah? So what?

Although well intentioned, these laws are too far reaching to be effective, and will do more harm than good. The laws were created to protect the owners of “intellectual property” from having that property stolen. It also has sub-sets that protect consumers from having counterfeit drugs sold to them under false pretenses. On the surface, this appears to be a good thing…it protects bloggers like you and me from having our writings put up on other sites without our knowledge, it protects software companies from piracy, and it protects companies like Pfizer, who put millions into drugs like Viagra, only to have sub-standard (and often dangerous) knockoffs of their drugs sold online, thereby ruining their reputations and sales. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said, “Millions of American jobs hang in the balance”, and in this economy, that is a potent argument. Especially for folks like me who are out of work.

The problem here is, 99% of the perpetrators that these laws target are off-shore. They aren’t American. So, will this law affect them? Nope.

So what does it do? How will it work? How will it be effective?

Since the lawmakers cannot go after the law-breakers, they will go after the next best thing, the companies providing access to the lawbreakers. That means Comcast, because they gave you access to that website. Or Google, because they had a link to that illegal pharmaceutical. Or Facebook, because they allowed your friend to post that link to that anti-government speech.

We all know what that’s called.

CENSORSHIP.

Welcome to 1984. Because not only will Big Brother be watching you, they will be forced to watch you.

Or else.

ISPs and website owners will be forced to monitor everything YOU do in an effort to make sure you aren’t doing anything wrong. And the way the law is written, you have to prove your innocence, which goes against the American ideal of “innocent until proven guilty”. Key word being PROVEN.

Are all of us web geeks simply being reactionary? Judge for yourself: Many companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn have already come out against SOPA and PIPA.

Imagine a doctor writes an article that says a naturally occurring herb provides the same value as Tylenol, and can be bought cheaply in any store in America. You read the article, become intrigued and post it on your Facebook. Your friends post it. And their friends. It goes “viral”. Facebook would be required to tell you (and your friends and their friends) to cease and desist…or face injunction in a court of law. Worse yet, Johnson & Johnson, if they feel their rights have been infringed upon, can sue you, your friends, their friends AND Facebook.

So, in the end, Facebook is forced to watch over your shoulder.

Now, thats simply a layman’s example, and is probably flawed. But do the research. You will find I am not far off the mark.

I’m a big defender of free speech. Open dialogue. I’ll even go as far as saying Stormfront has a right to exist. Every single member of Stormfront hates my guts, simply because of my ethnic background (they probably hate YOU too). But, our US Constitution guarantees the right to free expression. Even for idiot racists.

And even for folks on the internet.

So although I am still torn over the idea of taking my blog to black, like Estelle, I am wholly behind the protest along with her. (Full disclosure: I have loads of respect for Estelle Weyl, and am one of her biggest fans)

So, while I make my own decision on HOW to protest, I will do all I can to spread the word.

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