Moderator notice: This is a genuine series of events taking place across the internet right now. Hard to believe? Please watch the video or type SOPA in google and click on News across the header of the page for relevant proof. Also I have written this myself, having watched events unfold over the last few days on Reddit, Twitter and various reliable news sources such as OSNews and Arstechnica.

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Hi everyone,

If you haven't already heard through the various social media networks in the last couple of weeks - American Congress is attempting to pass a bill through the senate called Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA). Now the fact of the matter is this bill goes well beyond the debate of piracy - the American government wants to introduce censorship measures on the internet - similar to the Great Firewall of China. "But wait a minute, I don't live in the US - how the hell will this effect me?" Read on.

Supporters of this bill include amongst many others, MPAA, RIAA, Apple/Microsoft (via proxy), EA Games (Electronic Arts) anda huge amount of entertainment companies including Fox and Viacom. However, on the opposite side of the coin, across the globe companies have spoken out publicly and online their opposition against SOPA - these include Facebook, Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and many more.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia only yesterday announced they will be progressively moving their domain name services away from GoDaddy; a supporter of the bill, a company in bed with the American government and also explicitly stated as being exempt from this bill(!).

Do you want Facebook to disappear? Do you want YouTube to disappear? Are you against Censorship on the internet? Do you value freedom of speech? Do you enjoy listening to music on Spotify? Do you love the idea of Megabox, 90% of every song sold goes directly into the pockets of singers rather than the corporations.
Then Act Now - watch this video, share it with all your friends, join the debate on Twitter, google SOPA - I promise you WILL be alarmed.

If you are as truly passionate about a free and open internet, free of censorship and that embraces innovation and job creation - please watch this video and share it with everyone you know. Thanks for reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM&feature=share

(Commentary in English, Subtitles also available in Portuguese)

Call to Action: Are you a web designer? Do you have client's websites held on GoDaddy servers? GoDaddy is a massive supporter of SOPA. There is protest movement underway at the moment - GoDaddy have already lost over 80,000 domains within the space of the last week thanks to their stance on SOPA. Put 29th December 2011 in your calendar - 'Mass-move from GoDaddy day'. As mentioned above, Wikipedia are in the process of moving their domains right now.

Last edited by djrikki on 26-Dec-2011 at 03:45 AM.

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@djrikki

I read of that some time ago and it was really BAD thing...
Internet MUST be free! Also if that was sometimes not so nice...

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Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

@djrikki

There have been horror-stories about this for as long as the web has been popular.
The US government isn't that dumb, there is no way they would remove entire popular websites like that because such a flagrant disregard for the constitution would mean they'd be certain to get voted out come the next election.
And even if they were that stupid, everyone would just use another country's DNS instead.

DNS blocking itself is a completely ineffectual method, do people believe the US government are dumb enough to use it for censorship?

Last edited by Spirantho on 26-Dec-2011 at 09:38 AM.

@djrikki

As usual, same way US gov. can access your Facebook, Twitter, Google accounts and info since its US companies

Proper answer is Benders Anti Piracy Ad

Yes, copyright rights should be protected, especially software ones, but first should be started by shutting down File servers and Pirates Bay, and not by persecution of individual users, it has no point but in jamming legal sys and earning money from citizens.

Good example of what should be down are Pirates Bay users that spread AmigaOS 4 piracy, namely Rogue 2008 and Raslatt.

Their accounts should be downed and associated Torrents.

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OS 3.x AROS and MOS supporter, fi di good, nothing fi di unprofessionalism. Learn it harder way!
SinclairQL and WII U lover :D
YT http://www.youtube.com/user/rasvoja