As a means of protesting pending Internet blacklist legislation known as SOPA and PIPA*, instead of going OFFLINE, we are staying ONLINE.
After all, what better way to promote free speech, then to continue to engage in free speech? Why censor ourselves?
*The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) by the U.S. Senate. Concerns have been raised that these acts would severely cripple the free and open Internet. You would be able to read about these bills on Wikipedia, but that site has gone dark in protest, temporarily.
We’ll be here tomorrow too. That’s the plan, anyway.
Comments 9
lame, lamer and lamest, SDRostra. lots of sites remained open today. the smart ones still found a way to let people know that this was a big deal– but you’d rather be all snippy and uppity about that.
OR you could have told us why you think SOPA and PIPA are good ideas.
i call that intellectual cowardice.
Author
Talk about missing the point.
Did we say the bills are good ideas? Nope. In fact, we wrote, “As a means of protesting pending Internet blacklist legislation…” We spelled out the names of the bills, for those very few Rostra readers that may not be aware of them, in case they want to research them BY NAME. We even provided a link to Wikipedia that shows exactly why the site is dark, along with the action the Wiki peeps recommend.
We simply chose to reference the protest in an off-the-cuff manner, since we don’t have the resources to simply “go dark.”
We are very aware that Rostra readers are the kind of people that follow the news closely. We simply don’t have to do much education on items that can be found on every news program and in every major newspaper in existence.
We now propose a blacklist of those lacking a sense of humor.
The OB Rag is jealous, that’s all.
TA, that point about lacking sense of humor is right on the money.
If only doug porter would wake up and smell the ganga, he’d realize that opposition to SOPA encompasses right and left, from Human Events to Daily Kos. (And the Libertarians welcome the company).
Oh, please don’t blacklist me, masser Thor. That would be even worse than being on Carl DeMaio’s enemies list.
Author
This humble assistant is just a simple pawn in Thor’s game. Only he has the power to blacklist.
Lack of Ganga to smell is not the problem at the OB Rag.
Author
We think it’s ganja with a j, but how would we know?
Yes, my apologies, it is indeed ganja with a j, so says Urban Dictionary.
More importantly, so say Cheech and Chong.