A dark day for free speech

Wikipedia went dark today in protest of SOPA and PIPA – two proposed anti-piracy bills that, if passed by the US Congress, could amount to censorship.

Joining in the protest in various ways are popular sites such as Reddit, Flickr, Mozilla and Google. The movement has also been joined by thousands of other sites.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act give authorities the power to shut down sites they interpret as infringing on copyright. However, the proposed laws are too broad, wide-ranging and open to abuse.

And while the law is US-based, it will affect the world. Sites like Facebook, Google and YouTube would be taken down, for example. And things will only get worse when other governments follow suit.

The Internet as we know it will cease to exist. And free speech will be a lot less free.

Don’t let our freedom be eroded. Find out more at http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa.