Please know that blacking out my site isn’t easy; it’s my home on the web, and these bills – our government – threaten me, my livelihood and my family … and if you use the internet, you are threatened as well.
Contact your Congress people now at American Censorship’s site.
Why stop SOPA? Simple. SOPA (read the bill – Congress won’t) and PIPA are bills that will damage the internet – how we read, write, create and interact with the internet. Please spend a few minutes reading some of these links (which themselves might be illegal if these bills pass) and contact (y)our Senators and Representatives. This is how to find out who they are and where they stand on these bills.
Electronic Frontier Foundation says:
As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet’s underlying infrastructure. The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to block users’ attempts to reach certain websites’ URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the Internet grows increasingly balkanized.
Chris Heald at Mashable wonderfully summarizes the bills and their impacts, closing with this (bolding is mine):
This bill turns us all into criminals. If it passes, then you either stop using the Internet, or you simply hope that you never end up in the crosshairs, because if you’re targeted, you will be destroyed by this bill. You don’t have to be a big, mean, nasty criminal — common Internet usage is effectively criminalized under this law. This bill will kill American innovation and development of the Internet, as it will become too risky to do anything of value. It is toxic and dangerous, and should not, under any circumstances, be supported.
If infographics are your thing, this at ReadWrite will help.
And this is SlashGear 101: SOPA and PIPA explained in plain English
U.S. Bills Could Threaten the Global Internet
The passage of SOPA and PIPA by the United States Congress and Senate would force social media platforms and other web sites that host user-generated content to pro-actively monitor and censor users to prevent them from posting words or images that may violate copyrights. It would raise the cost of participation on these sites for all users worldwide, and could force many social media projects to shut down, especially smaller websites and businesses.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
Even more about SOPA at Mashable.