As you've likely noticed by now, the Internet looks a little different today. Some of the biggest websites in the world are engaging in a "blackout" to protest pending legislation in Congress that could potentially result in the takedown of large amounts of non-infringing content from the Internet, violating our First Amendment rights.
The online protest is in response to two bills pending before Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. These bills would impact not only unlawful infringing content, but also a wealth of completely legal content that has nothing to do with online piracy. Their vague wording even means that search engines could end up blocking access to entire websites for containing just the smallest portion of infringing content. This is why sites like Wikipedia, Google and Reddit are so concerned about the legislation, and why they’ve taken the unprecedented step of blacking out their own content.
Tell Congress to oppose SOPA and work to find a better solution to stop online piracy without restricting lawful online content.
A little over two months ago, we publicly opposed SOPA in its original form, and we were set to testify on it before a House committee today until the hearing was postponed, following a promise by SOPA’s proponents to significantly change the bill. Meanwhile, the White House has issued a statement opposing any bill that would impact First Amendment-protected online content, and the public outcry continues to grow.
We’ll keep following this issue and let you know how it turns out, but in the meantime, join with the ACLU and add your voice to those demanding a free and open Internet. Tell Congress to oppose SOPA.
