Sopa is a word in Marathi and it means “easy”. I guess that was the expectation of the American politicians who proposed the PIPA and SOPA legislation. Though it has has quite vocal opposition from technically sound people they are still hell bent on bull dozing it through. Considering that almost all other countries will take this as a precedent without a second thought it has been gratifying to see heavy weights like Wikipedia get their hands dirty instead of allowing this gross joke of an act go through without a whimper.
Wikipedia has gone on a blackout for 24 hrs, and so has Boing Boing. In fact WordPress.com itself is self censoring the same way scribd had done some weeks ago. Props to Scribd in taking a step and doind a bit of active protest.
Wikipedia Blackout.
Boing Boing blackout.
Craiglist Blackout
WordPress protests.
Will all this bear fruit? Frankly, I do not know. I am not entirely sure that the tablet, smartphone and app loving public really care about the freedom of the internet. Still hope reigns supreme and in this case I really really hope that we dodge this bullet.
Closer home, I am less optimistic. Our government seems hell bent in becoming a China, N.Korea or Libya.
January 19th, 2012 at 1:08 am
Cornering the market on a black-out day, eh?
January 19th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
more like noting down the day in my online diary. You and one or two others are the only readers of this diary, so it is pretty safe to use this as a pensieve