SOPA is creating a lot of buzz lately. Or should I say the SOPA protesters are. Well If you dont know what SOPA is all about see this:
Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia
Wait this is a Wikipedia link and I just said that wikipedia goes dark today. Apparently this is the only page thats working fine today and won't go dark after some seconds. Smart move by wikipedia isn't it?
Image credit: Watblog
What is SOPA??
SOPA( Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill which if passed would change the way internet works. And when I say change I don't mean in a good way. It would give the US government right to take down any site infringing copyright material. That doesn't sound bad isn't it?? Well it is. Its not in what SOPA aims for but how it works. I dont want to write a lot about how SOPA is dangerous because a lot has already been written about it.
Have a look at this: Why is SOPA Dangerous
You can read the bill here: SOPA
What's Next??
What's next. That's the main concern I have. With popular sites like google, wikipedia, reddit protesting actively against SOPA and more joining the protest soon, SOPA seems unlikely to happen:
1. People: In the coming days we will see that more and more people would get aware of how dangerous SOPA is for the internet and would join the revolution. According to me, the people would show there protest by sharing there views on various social networking sites, changing there profile pictures to oppose SOPA and participating in various discussion forums.
2. Websites: 18th Jan is the anti SOPA protest day. But I don't see this protest getting extended. I believe we won't see another blackout by these sites in the future. That means all sites would get back to normal by tomorrow.
3. Government: Eventually we will see the US government backing out of the bill. We may see another version of SOPA introduced. But with giants like Google opposing SOPA, there is no way that such a bill will get passed. Just imagine if SOPA gets passed and we see the end of pouplar sites like wikileaks, people would go crazy and we may see a worldwide protest. So I say again SOPA seems very unlikely to get passed.
Sites Protesting Against SOPA:
These are some of the popular sites protesting against SOPA as on 18th Jan 2012.
- Wikipedia: The english desktop version of WIKIPEDIA is down for 24 hrs. It will blackout within seconds of loading any page
- Reddit: The popular Social sharing site would be down for 12 hrs today
- Google: Google US shows protest against SOPA on its homepage. Being in India I can't see the US version of google. So curious to find how google US homepage looks today I used a US proxy site to access google. So if you are someone living outside US and want to see how Google US homepage looks go to the site UsWebProxy and enter google.com in the url field and click on proxy now.
- Other Sites: Other popular sites like Wordpress, Craigslist, Boingboing and some others are also down today informing people how bad SOPA is for the internet
So what are your views about SOPA??? Are you one of those rare people who happen to support it? Also what do you think will happen in the coming days. Share your views in the comments section below.
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading
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