Posted on 12/30/2011 1:05:04 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Will Google, Amazon, and Facebook Black Out the Net?
By Alec Liu
Published December 30, 2011 | FoxNews.com
In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.
No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.
The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.
A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.
“Mozilla had a blackout day and Wikipedia has talked about something similar,” Erickson told FoxNews.com, calling this kind of operation unprecedented.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“the liberals could easily have FR shut down and,,,,”
And THAT is the true and only goal of SOPA, to supress the TEA style movements. They are bitter beyond belief at how hard we fought against healthcare and how we could organize and spread information.
They could care less about movie piracy or downloading a few songs.
The internet got WAY out of hand before they realized how people would use it to expose them. They simply never dreamed what the meaning of it was,, and just thought if ot as a geeky online library with some news and shopping usefulness.
I highly recommend this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Hillarys-Secret-War-Conspiracy-Journalists/dp/1595552251
It details how Hillary made a giant effort in the mid to late 90s to literally let the government control content. This book will tell you what they STILL want to do, and how they think they can accomplish it. They only thing saving is is that they are always too far behind the power curve. As they plan how to silence facebook and google, the next ideas are already rattling around in some whizz kids head.
*blush*
when you see publicly traded companies literally giving up revenue in order to protest, it is called putting (some of) your money where your mouth is.
Turn it off, and never turn it back on.
I spend, well, too much time on the internet. None of those four items would affect me in any way.
No Facebook > Cocaine Withdrawal
Mark
Amen. And we CANNOT forget that this legislation is being driven by a Republican.
This sounds good to me. Based on everything I’ve read about it, SOPA is a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course, if it does pass, I can always dust off the ol’ Commodore 64 and start slumming the BBS networks at 1200 baud.
And if they go after that, I’ll break out my crystal radio set!
Now we see what could possibly severely curtail the flow of information on the internet. It's getting very scary.
I got up at 4:30 this morning to watch a live special tv show from Japan. It streamed on Justintv and we had live subtitles from a group in Singapore.
I looked at my kids and told them that it was amazing when you think of it. However, there is a good chance that, although this show has been streamed and subbed every New Years for 5 years, next year this legislature may shut it all down.
>> I wish these folks that are fighting to keep the internet would fight this hard to keep their constitutional rights.
bttt
It’s regrettable the dumb old shits in DC are empowered with the force of Statism.
Do you enjoy the freedom of reading and posting articles and comments on FRee Republic?
Have you contacted your Senators and Representative and told them NO SOPA and PIPA? If not, maybe you don’t enjoy FR as much as you thought.
Lighten up folks, they are only trying to protect Mickey Mouse, er Steam Boat Willie. </sarcasm>
But he was electable and he had an (R) by his name. </sarcasm>
Let’s remember that Newt was at the forefront of keeping the internet unregulated. He is a big science/technology geek and understood what it was all about very early on.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70274.html
“Newt is brilliant,” said Tim Draper, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who helped to raise money this week for Romney. “He has a deep understanding of many technologies, but more importantly, he studied Silicon Valley and I believe he has a good understanding of why it works.”
At the time, Gingrich talked up the transformative power of the Internet and a world where schools and hospitals would be wired.
Gingrich is “sensitive to innovation, to job creation, to start-ups and not having the government doing — but getting out of the away,” said McNealy, who is now chairman of social-media start-up Wayin. Gingrich “is a spectacular idea guy.”
Some of the early, libertarian-leaning views that won him fans in Silicon Valley were potential time bombs with the GOP faithful, but he stood his ground. In 1996, Gingrich — then the speaker of the House — resisted an attempt to fight porn on the Internet.
When the Senate began to push for the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Gingrich put up a roadblock that helped undermine the act, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court. The act, introduced by then-Sen. Jim Exon (D-Neb.), would have made indecent materials on the Internet illegal and made intermediaries — such as Internet service providers — responsible for policing content on the Web.
Some saw this effort as trying to apply rules of broadcast television to the Internet. Gingrich said then that the bill would not protect children but would impinge on the rights of adults. With then-Reps. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Gingrich pushed for an alternative that emphasized parental education.
“He should be credited with helping to promote a solution to come out against regulation that would have thwarted free speech and the vibrant Internet we know today,” said Jerry Berman, founder of the Center for Democracy and Technology, one of the first cyber liberties groups.
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