Jan 18, 2012

Cute is Going Dark Today to Protest SOPA

I don't want to alarm anyone, but the government is trying to take away our cute cat videos.

OK, maybe they aren't aiming straight for Maru and Oskar, but if SOPA passes (Stop Online Piracy Act - it's a censorship bill that could really ruin the internet), it could change the way Youtube, Google, and yes, even the Cute are because of censorship.

An (over-simplified) example: If there is a song playing in the background of a cute cat video on Youtube or if someone is singing a song to their cat, and I embed it... and it turns out that song is copyrighted (they all are, OK?), then the person who posted the video, Youtube AND the Cute could all technically get sued and even shut down.

Preposterous!

So, to protest, the Cute is going dark today from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., along with a bagillion other sites on the interwebs. Don't worry, we'll be back. Check out all the sites that are participating at this link. Big names... Reddit, Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, ALL the Cheezburger sites... this is serious business.

Here's a video if you want to learn more about it:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.


So what can you do?

Here is Google's page with a petition you can sign to ask Congress not to censor the web and say NO to SOPA and PIPA.

You can write to Congress directly through this page (they even give you something you can just copy and paste right there): http://sopastrike.com/strike.

You can add a "STOP SOPA" black bar to your Twitter avatar or Facebook default picture here: http://www.blackoutsopa.org.

And that's just a start.

The main thing here is to raise awareness and let Congress know that censorship is not OK. If anything like this ever passes, it could just be a stepping stone for even more. I like the slogan on Google's page best: End Piracy, Not Liberty. SOPA is not the way.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting that video... great explanation in regular language that even my mom can understand.   I am proud of you for going dark!

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  2. You're welcome! I think that's one of the main things that needs to happen... it just needs to be broken down into language everyone can understand. Tell you mom hi! ;)

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  3. GRRRRR...THE PETITION HAS BEEN REMOVED! WHAAAT? Is it time to tell Washington to but out of our lives? They just KEEP ON STEALING OUR FREEDOMS; IMO WE'D ALL BE WELL RID OF THESE CONTROL FREAKS! "Oh, I applaud your 'going dark!'"

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You know what would be really cute? If you left a comment... :)

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