CONTROLLING THE WEB
On January 18, 2012 over 7,000 websites,
On January 18, 2012 over 7,000 websites,
including Wikipedia and Google protested
SOPA and PIPA, some by "going dark" or
by posting information about these Bills on
their landing pages to educate visitors.
Video: (25 minutes)
Opponents to the bills had concerns that the
But it was only one win in a long battle
The US government says it must be able
Can and should the internet be controlled?
Fault Lines looks at the fight for control of
Video: (25 minutes)
Controlling the Web
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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In January 2012. SOPA, the Stop Online
Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual
Property Act, two controversial pieces of
legislation were making their way through
the US Congress. The bills were drafted on
request of the content industry, Hollywood
studios and major record labels and were
meant to crack down on the illegal sharing
of digital media.
Opponents to the bills had concerns that the
Bills' passage would give the government
powerful censorship tools that could threaten
free speech.
In protest, in the English-language version
of
Wikipedia (then, the world's 5th largest
website)
went dark from midnight January
18th until midnight
January 19th, with
information about SOPA and PIPA
posted,
encouraging visitors to contact their
representatives in Congress in place of its
usual
encyclopedia entries. Many other large
websites
followed suit, including the biggest
website in the
world, Google, which posted
a
link to information
about the proposed
legislation.
But it was only one win in a long battle
between
US authorities and online users
over internet
regulation.
The US government says it must be able
to fight
against piracy and cyber attacks.
And
that means
imposing more restrictions
online.
But proposed
legislation could
seriously
curb
freedom of speech
and privacy,
threatening
the Internet as we know
it.
As Quinn Norton, former girlfriend of the
late Internet prodigy, Adam Swartz and a
journalist who covers the Internet, hacker
culture, Anonymous, intellectual property
and copyright issues says here, that legally,
on the Internet (at least for now), "...there
really isn't any difference... between
copyright violation and speech. So anything
you do to restrict copyright violation is also
a restriction on speech."
Can and should the internet be controlled?
Who
gets that power? How far will the US
government
go to gain power over the web?
And will this mean
the end of a free and
global internet?
Fault Lines looks at the fight for control of
the web, age and the threat to cyber freedom,
asking if US authorities are increasingly trying
to regulate user freedoms in the name of
national and economic security.
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