Are We On the Road to Censorship with SOPA and PIPA?

By Charis Taylor

We saw what just might be a peek at our future on “Black Wednesday”. Google’s famous logo was covered by a big black rectangle and many sites were offline for the day in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills that were proposed to Congress. What exactly do these acronyms stand for and how can the approval of these bills affect us in America?
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) were essentially created in an effort to protect music, film and other creative arts copyright laws. Stealing and/or illegally selling these materials have become a huge problem for these industries, especially rogue sites that are owned and operated by overseas accounts. What is being largely debated and what many are afraid of is the lack of boundaries that these bills have. Because the bills could trickle into other aspects of copyright infringement, many are afraid that ultimately our Freedom of Speech in America could be affected.
Take a moment and picture sitting down at your computer. You type in “Facebook” and it is blocked. You try to look something up and type in “Google”, but there is no Google. If SOPA and PIPA are not redefined and clearly defined by Congress, then this is exactly what could happen. Jobs, blogs, companies, ecommerce and the economy will all be affected. If this scares you, then you are not alone. The reality is frightening.
Internet censorship is an everyday occurrence for people in China. The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT, blocks people from accessing Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube (just to name a few) and also certain keyword phrases from being searched. In essence, the MIIT, is trying to prevent the Chinese people from accessing true facts about the Chinese government and its history. Of course, people are constantly finding ways around these barriers, but the MIIT’s job is to make gaining knowledge of any blocked information inaccessible.
Are you aware that we are already being censored from some information here in America? Certain websites and software companies, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Microsoft, and even Apple, have given in to the Chinese demands to block certain data from us. Why? In order to stay on China’s good side and continue doing business with them. In January of 2011, Google accused the Chinese of trying to gain access to private Gmail accounts and stated that they would no longer censor Google.cn. Yes, this caused a big hit for Google in China, but they are still fighting to grow.
On “Black Wednesday” internet giants revealed in a small scale that if SOPA and PIPA bills pass in Congress, the way we use the internet today will be changed considerably. Most of us cannot, and should not, have to picture a world that involves this kind of censorship. Stealing copyright material is absolutely wrong and needs to be stopped, but there are other ways that this can be handled and this is where Congress needs to concentrate their efforts. Here in the United States, we take many of our freedoms from granted each and every day. As Americans, we need to stand up and fight for our rights under the Constitution, or we can wave goodbye to more and more of our freedoms.

Learn more about Internet Marketing in San Antonio. Call Totus Internet Visibility Agency at 512-366-3963 and find more about SOPA and PIPA and how we can help you.

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