On January 18, 2012 — TODAY — many sites on the Internet (including the English-language version of the encyclopedia site Wikipedia) will go completely DARK for twenty-four hours.
Why?
The owners and users of those sites are protesting SOPA and PIPA, the two “anti-piracy” bills currently up for consideration in the United States Congress. SOPA and PIPA are proposing anti-piracy measures that are tantamount to the censorship of the Internet in America.
If SOPA or PIPA passes in Congress:
- Hundreds of thousands of websites will be removed from the Internet in America — those innocent of piracy as well as those guilty of it (and the innocent will far outnumber the guilty).
- The ability of computers to find websites on the Internet through the Domain Name System (DNS) — the Internet “phone book” — will be seriously compromised, along with the security of the Internet itself, as a result of the tampering proposed by SOPA and PIPA.
- The United States will have instituted a system of censorship on par with those of totalitarian nations like North Korea, Syria, and Myanmar; free information exchange among Americans will be impaired.
- The First Amendment to the Constitution will be unable to protect free speech on the Internet.
Your Brain Under Censorship (2012). Digital collage created & copyright © by Eric Edelman. All rights reserved.
What can Americans do about this?
There are many ways we can take action, but they all amount to effort spent on one task: stopping SOPA or PIPA from becoming law.
For information on what YOU can do to stop SOPA and PIPA — and to learn how they will CENSOR the Internet — please visit this site:
For information on the Wikipedia blackout, please visit:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
Thank you for helping to keep the Internet safe for free speech and exchange of information!
(All artwork, descriptions, & other text [except for quotations & links] created & copyright © by Eric Edelman. All rights reserved.)
I love the images. I don’t like what that second one represents.
~EdT.
Thanks. I’m glad you don’t like what the second one stands for. Thanks also for joining the fight against SOPA and PIPA!
I hate all this, I can’t believe it’s even an issue. I could go on and on about this. Enjoy your time off!
Thanks, Meghan. Unfortunately, it won’t be time off, because I’m attending an anti-SOPA/PIPA protest. I hate that it’s an issue too, but as abolitionist Wendell Philips put it in the 19th century (and before him, John Philpot Curran in the 18th century), “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” I glad you’ve gotten riled up; please rile up your friends and neighbors about this too!
I am only just today understanding what this is all about. I really liked these pictures.
Thanks! Please feel free to share them with others, and use them to explain to your friends and relatives what SOPA and PIPA are.
Powerful artwork to show the message.
Thanks, Joyce. I hope Congress gets the message. We’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
I feel like I”m holding my breath, waiting for this horrible bill to disappear.
We need to do a lot more than that to make it disappear. Please TAKE ACTION: if you’re a U.S. citizen, please write to your representatives and senators about this NOW; if you’re a citizen of another country, please write to the U.S. Department of State, asking them to protest against the adoption of SOPA and PIPA. Thanks for taking action!
I love the art! I too am participating in the blackout!
Thank you very much! & welcome.
Love that you found a way to put this out there high visibility.
Thanks –Love your post as well. Please let people know about Net censorship.
so agree! thanks for bringing it to light for more people to know what is going on!
Thank you, Susie. Please spread the word and let everyone know what’s at stake.
Hope they start to listen soon, Eric – be interesting to see how many sites DO go dark today
Thanks. We’re all determined that the forces and money behind SOPA and PIPA not get away with this.
The pictures are so strong, and so true… Thanks for sharing!
Thanks. Please share and spread the word about SOPA/PIPA.
This a great collage! You showed the message so well.
Thanks, Carol! Spread the word to everyone you know about the need to defeat Net censorship!
Happy WW!
Happy WW to you as well! Please spread the word about Net censorship…..
Holy crock of crazy, Batman. Thank you for sharing this important information. Powerful collages to illustrate what an impact passing these bills would make.
Thanks, Aquarian! Yes indeed, a real crock of crazy. (If I weren’t concerned about keeping the signal clean on this blog, I’d say it’s a crock of something else, but I leave that to your imagination!) Please feel free to post this image on your own blog or share it with friends by e-mail, to spread the word about the evils of SOPA and PIPA. Thanks for your help!
Wow, censoring the Internet? It sounds serious… Happy WW!
Serious? Yes, you could say that ….
Serious enough so that if one of these bills passes, you could lose your blog and everything connected with it; serious enough that even if your blog survives, your family and friends might never be able to see it properly or even find it; serious enough that if the authorities and the “Content Police” (the music and motion-picture industry, aka Big Content) even think you’ve downloaded one commercial music file and played it on your blog — even if you never did, and the charges are untrue — you could be slapped with heavy fines or the threat of jail time.
Serious enough that free information that we all rely on every day — the heart of the Internet — will no longer be free if Big Content gets its way with SOPA or PIPA.
If you agree with me that this IS serious, please visit the link I posted in this blog entry, and join the rest of us in the fight to keep the Net free and safe for free speech. Thanks for getting involved! And happy WW — on a free Internet (up to now, at least).
I just hope this doesn’t pass as it’s just more of our freedoms being taken away.
I’m afraid it’s going to take more than just hope to keep this from passing, Jen. If you haven’t done so already, please sign petitions and letters at the link I posted above. And please feel free to re-post or share this blog post and the picture in it to communicate with as many people as possible that they need to do the same: write to their legislators and ask them to oppose SOPA and PIPA, and sign petitions against these censorship bills. We are being heard, but it’s going to take all of us to do this! Thank you for taking action.
hahaha. Love the picture and it is SO true. I’ve already signed the online petition.
Thanks! And thanks for signing the petition! Believe it or not, when you and I sign petitions or attend protests, we do make an impact upon our legislators. Last week, there were only five senators against PIPA; this week, there are THIRTY-SIX senators against it! We only need to change the minds of just FIVE MORE SENATORS to STOP PIPA and SOPA DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS! Thank you for making a difference!
That is so cool! Thank’s for sharing:)
Visiting for WW! Hope you can stop by:)
http://www.cassandrasminicorner.com/2012/01/wordless-wednesday-my-girl-and-minnie-mouse.html
Thanks, Leah! Please spread the word about fighting against Internet censorship; feel free to re-post the link to this blog entry on your friends’ website and in e-mails to them. Please sign petitions and letters, and call your legislators (they do listen, believe it or not). And thanks for joining the fight!
Great representation of a very serious issue. I’ve signed a few different petitions and done everything I can to get people to make noise about these oppressive bills.
Thanks, Kathryn! And thank you very much for spreading the word about how bad SOPA and PIPA are. We are making a difference: already most of the support for PIPA in the Senate has evaporated! But we can’t and shouldn’t let down our guard yet; the fight is far from won.