In a world where information is freely distributed and accessible, it is difficult for a majority of Americans to imagine life with a censored Internet. Wikipedia is but one of many sites to demonstrate such an inconvenience. For 24 hours from now, it intends to black out along with Reddit and more in protest of two Congressional bills, SOPA and PIPA.
The Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act were intended to combat the piracy of movies, music, and other intellectual property, a continuing problem that has cost the entertainment industry billions of dollars. Unfortunately, critics claim, the bills may not do as much good as harm. Not only would websites that shared digital content, including Youtube, Tumblr, and other social media sites, be subject to lawsuits, but search engines could be required to remove links to offending sites, effectively wiping them from the face of cyberspace.
Internet giants from Wikipedia to Google have voiced their concerns. Even White House representatives, including the U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, have responded to petitions: “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
Despite the attacks, authors of the bill made statements against the protest. As Rep. Lamar Smith claims, “It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act.” He criticized Wikipedia for “promoting fear instead of facts.”
Are Wikipedia and information sites truly doing a disservice to the world, or is their message worth spreading?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
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3 comments:
If there was no way to access Wikipedia's information during the downtime, then I believe that no matter the message, Wikipedia could actually be doing America a disservice. However, since you can still access all the pages through Google caches or Facebook, I believe that Wikipedia disseminates a worthwhile message while not cutting off their main purpose all together. At any rate, if 24 hours without Wikipedia makes such a big difference, then perhaps you should invest in a real encyclopedia.
Kore, you are missing the point. Wikipedia was blacked out for a day to raise awareness of SOPA. Even if you are the 5% of people who know how and feel the need to access Google caches to read a wiki article during that time, you have already seen the blackout page.
The outcry over the bills has definitely been intensified by the social media and blogs. Wikipedia and Reddit are not the only popular sites protesting, other include Craigslist, Boing Boing, and Pressthink. The frenzy of media coverage has affected the congressional phone lines that were flooded on Wednesday.
I think that one reason why the PIPA and SOPA have gained a huge unpopularity is because it worries more about the profits of some media companies. Not a lot of people are affected by the pirated movies or music. In fact, there are many people that who would rather buy 3 pirated movies with that money than one blue ray movie that will cost them $30. In addition not only does it threaten legal protections that foster innovative websites, but it also undermines due process and free speech.
I do believe that the battle is far from over because the legislation seems to be determined to continue working on more revision if necessary and coming up with alternatives. The supporters of PIPA and SOPA are going to continue pushing for these bills so that they can address the problems with online piracy. We can defiantly expect to have more debates about these bills on TV.
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