Wednesday, July 1, 2015

CONTROLLING THE WEB


CONTROLLING THE WEB

On January 18, 2012 over 7,000 websites, 
including Wikipedia and Google protested 
SOPA and PIPA, some by "going dark" or 
by posting information about these Bills on 
their landing pages to educate visitors.


Video: (25 minutes)

   

 
In January 2012. SOPA, the Stop Online 
Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual 
Property Act, two controversial pieces of 
legislation were making their way through 
the US Congress. The bills were drafted on 
request of the content industry, Hollywood 
studios and major record labels and were 
meant to crack down on the illegal sharing 
of digital media.

Opponents to the bills had concerns that the 
Bills' passage would give the government 
powerful censorship tools that could threaten 
free speech.
 
In protest, in the English-language version 
of  Wikipedia (then, the world's 5th largest 
website)  went dark from midnight January 
18th until midnight  January 19th, with 
information about SOPA and PIPA  posted, 
encouraging visitors to contact their 
representatives in Congress in place of its 
usual  encyclopedia entries. Many other large 
websites  followed suit, including the biggest 
website in the  world, Google, which posted 
link to information  about the proposed 
legislation.

But it was only one win in a long battle 
between  US authorities and online users 
over internet  regulation. 

The US government says it must be able 
to fight  against piracy and cyber attacks. 
And  that means  imposing more restrictions 
online.  But proposed  legislation could 
seriously  curb  freedom of speech  and privacy, 
threatening  the Internet as we know  it.

As Quinn Norton, former girlfriend of the 
late Internet prodigy, Adam Swartz and a 
journalist who covers the Internet, hacker 
culture, Anonymous, intellectual property 
and copyright issues says here, that legally, 
on the Internet (at least for now), "...there 
really isn't any difference... between 
copyright violation and speech. So anything 
you do to restrict copyright violation is also 
a restriction on speech."

Can and should the internet be controlled? 
Who  gets that power? How far will the US 
government  go to gain power over the web? 
And will this mean  the end of a free and 
global internet?

Fault Lines looks at the fight for control of 
the web, age and the threat to cyber freedom, 
asking if US authorities are increasingly trying 
to regulate user freedoms in the name of 
national and economic security.


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Alexandra Bruce , Publisher 
ForbiddenKnowledgeTV.com
Daily Videos from the Edges of Science

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