Time to blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA

I have devoted my profile today and Wednesday to protest and inform the United States Internet Censorship bills currently being discussed at our two congress houses (House of representatives has SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) while the senate has PIPA (Protect IP Act)

Both bills have open ended text on them that will allow any agency of the government and ANY private corporation, such as Comcast, AT&T and others to take down ANY websites that they barely suspect contain copyrighted material on them

A great explanation also comes from a great deviant who summarizes the disaster in the making that SOPA and/or PIPA can bring. I'll quote

"Do you care about your rights?
I care about your rights.  SOPA is an infringement upon our rights.  Do you want the government controlling which websites it approves the use of?  Our freedoms for thought and free speech need to be protected for free internet.  In protest, blackout your pages, go silent, spread the word.  Petition sites you care about to do the same.

Who does SOPA effect?
Everyone who uses the internet.  Facebook, Twitter, social networking sites which cannot control the content posted by it's users and will be held responsible for it.  This is forced censorship.  This will not stop piracy.   This will effect law abiding citizens.  It does not protect our rights, it treads on it, spits on it, and throws our rights out the window at 100mph."

Some extra examples of sites that could be taken down besides of the ones on 's list are

among many others



What can YOU do?

Section 1: Write a letter to your representatives and senators in Washington. Both sites have a link that allows you to look for them on the top right corner (The Senate: www.senate.gov/) (the House: house.gov/)

Wikipedia's blackout page has it still easier to contact your representatives: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pag…

Section 2: Some websites have also pre-written letters you can sign, here are a few:

- americancensorship.org/
- www.change.org/petitions/stop-…
- www.democrats.com/stop-the-cor…

Section 3: Call your representatives and senators (same links as write a letter) in section 1

Section 4: Get away from the internet for 3 to 12 hours on Jan 18th

Section 5: Copy and paste this in your Facebook/myspace/twitter or whichever social network you are part of and tell your friends to do the same

Section 6: Do the same as section 5 on dA

Corporate interests can use all the money they want to promote SOPA and PIPA, but the people are the ultimate voice, if we show very strong opposition to SOPA and PIPA, then Congress and Senate will eventually have to step down from censoring the intetrnet

say NO to internet censorship!!