Infographic: How The SOPA Bill Could Destroy The Internet

Congress is currently debating a bill that could potentially destroy the internet as we know it.

The Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill that is allegedly aimed at preventing non-legit sites from streaming copyrighted material. However, the bill is problematic and could give rise to a wave of censorship similar to how China does things. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to let this happen.

Check out the infographic below or read the article on GigaOm to get more info. If you want to help out (you should), go here and voice your opinion. You’ll be joining thousands of concerned students and citizens , as well as dozens of websites including this one, Reddit, Mozilla, Tumblr, and more. If we’re loud enough, hopefully we can beat down the media industry’s bribe-laden bill and keep our internet.

Also, use the sharing bar on the left to spread this message and get others involved. We need all the help we can get!

[Infographic source: americancensorship.org]

10 comments so far - add yours!

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Estella February 23, 2012 at 1:56 am - Reply -

If you thought SOPA was bad, just wait Until you meet ACTA.
ACTA had move forward in Europe despite protests.
Catherine Jones February 19, 2012 at 10:59 pm - Reply -

I’m not sure anyone really knows the implications of a bill like SOPA. The alarmists against claim it will shut down the internet, highly unlikely. The naive supporters think it will only impact intellectual property from being stolen and reproduced in countries like China. Clearly the impact is somewhere in between. Unfortunately it will be difficult, even with SOPA, to prevent foreign piracy.
- Thomas Frank February 19, 2012 at 11:14 pm - Reply -
  
  It’s not that SOPA “will” shut the internet down – it’s not like the bill is calling for directly killing it; rather, it could indirectly kill any sort of community-driven website because it can make the website owners liable for what their users post.
Frank Zentura December 18, 2011 at 1:15 am - Reply -

I don’t understand why Obama wants to go down as the “that guy” that F’d up the Internet. I would hope he’d veto this but given his track record, I’m afraid he hasn’t the spine…
- Thomas Frank December 18, 2011 at 1:41 pm - Reply -
  
  Hopefully it won’t even get to that point.
Joanna Wilson November 24, 2011 at 11:18 am - Reply -

Hello there Thomas.It looks like you did a great job.Plenty of information.Now I’m learning.Thank you for giving this out with us.Keep it up!
patricksplace November 17, 2011 at 7:08 pm - Reply -

Great post, Thomas…thanks for explaining it so clearly.

Let me ask this: what’s the solution? There’s plenty of copyrighted content that’s being infringed online. As we know, “everybody does it” is not a valid legal excuse for breaking the law, and copyright holders DO have a right to protect their property. So how do we protect copyright holders who don’t want their material infringed upon without giving the government too much control?

Much of this argument does depend upon a “worst case scenario,” but if we want to prevent both copyright infringement and a level of government control that could lead to this “worst case,” what do we do?
- Thomas Frank November 17, 2011 at 8:34 pm - Reply -
  
  @patricksplace to me, the answer is simple; we just make the DMCA work better. Currently it’s a slow and often unsuccessful process – by improving it and serving copyright holders better, we can fix many issues.
bjtobar November 17, 2011 at 3:25 pm - Reply -

This is unconstitutional! They could potentially make up any evidence that they so see fit, and decide that any website such as wikipedia, does not meet their regulations and decide to block it. Way too controlling of the government to have such a bill in place!
- Thomas Frank November 17, 2011 at 3:34 pm - Reply -
  
  Agreed. That’s why we need to fight this as hard as we possibly can. Please spread this so others can join in.