Become informed about the web war

I posted an entry into this blog a few days ago that I purposely censored to draw attention to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Sure, it wasn’t remotely close to the ones done by Google and Wikipedia, but it was the least I could do.

Because there’s a massive web war brewing like no other and more people need to become informed. But now that politicians are realizing how dangerous SOPA and PIPA are to themselves and their reelections due to the massive protest made by internet-dwelling citizens, government and their aligned corporations are finding other ways to silence piracy until they can clean up these bills so that they’re more acceptable.

The first attack took place immediately. After realizing that the fight was going to be tougher than they originally expected, the government went and shut down the popular file-sharing website Megaupload.com without any preliminary trial. Then they seized an additional 18 domain names and made multiple arrests to employees of the company.

Revenge didn’t take long as soon the online hacktivism group, Anonymous, went on a spree of attacks to web sites associated with the war against piracy. They were successful in temporarily shutting down or slowing these sites:

·  Justice.gov

·  UniversalMusic.com

·  RIAA.org

·  MPAA.org

·  Copyright.gov

·  Hadopi.fr

·  WMG.com

·  USDOJ.gov

·  BMI.com

·  FBI.gov

In what could be the greatest war cry ever, Anonymous proclaimed, "We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz."

I can only see this battlefield worsening. With lines being drawn and sides being chosen, there is no clear answer to this dilemma. Corporations and politicians who are pro-censorship must deal with the massive amount of customer outcry and eventual withdrawal that could fall into their lap if they fight for this cause. Which explains why so much of this SOPA/PIPA support has accumulated behind closed doors.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes and who will stand up/sit down. It may even determine the future president of the United States due to how passionate most citizens are about this issue.


TODAY'S TASTY TRACK
 
Shiny Toy Guns
"Major Tom"
4, 3, 2, 1
Earth below us
drifting, falling.
Floating weightless
calling, calling home