In Support to Wikipedia’s Blackout Protest
After the Arab Uprising, we have seen in the news so many people risked and lost their lives, so many destructions and chaos. But in the end, what we are seeing now are the fruits of the sacrifices they have made, one of that fruits is “freedom”.
As of press time, only one arab country leader now remains persistent and not lending his ears to the cries of his people, that he must step down and end his authoritarian rule.
All these started because of the power of social networking and internet as a whole. It was never expected that the uprising in Tunisia, Egypt and other affected Arab countries, would all get started thru the internet.
With that, it simply tells us how powerful and important the internet is in this present time. Now, forward to this date, Wikipedia among other big internet companies launch this blackout protest against these proposed bills in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, the SOPA which is short for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and PIPA is an acronym for the “Protect IP Act,” “IP” stands for “intellectual property”.
It is strongly believed, that if these two proposed bills will be approved, everything on the internet will shut down. These two acts simply censor everything. In my understanding, based on wikipedia’s explanations, we as an internet user or let’s say a wikipedia frequenter, can no longer have that full access that we are freely having now like quoting wikipedia, because by doing so, is already a copyright infringement. Everything on the interment will be copyrighted.
The irony now is, United States of America which for several centuries defended its own and other countries in the world for freedom, is now doing the other way around, taking freedom which is the internet.
We don’t want that to happen. That is why even if I am not imposing blackout to my blogsite, I am writing this blog to show my support to the causes of wikipedia among others.
This kind of protest also is a history. Because of this, probably from now on, protests will no longer be demonstrated on the streets. 🙂 What do you think?