Dropping the Plate: On SOPA, PIPA and the Blackout

[Ryushikaze]

The sector seven plate was dropped as a desperate act to crush a dissenting voice ShinRa could not control. While it was an act of retribution, it was also an act of censorship and of control by intimidation- it was to serve as a warning so that no one else would attempt the act again.

SOPA and PIPA, the proposed Internet Security acts currently in the US congress, also seek the ability to control the flow of information, to be able to control and censor the information online, and this could be extremely problematic for website reliant on information that originates from other sources, including and especially this one.

Even in the reduced forms, these bills are dangerous and set a terrible precedent as far as free speech rights are concerned.
There is, however, a shiny golden wire of hope. Many sites, including Wikipedia, Google, Boingboing, and countless blogs, are going dark today as a form of protest against these bills, to demonstrate the terrible repercussions the ability to censor the internet would have. Many sites are urging their readers to contact their own congress members and urge them to vote against the bill.

We urge you to do the same. This bill would not just affect this site, it would affect us all, both here in the US and with possible aftereffects abroad as well.

So, The Lifestream stands with the Blackout and Against SOPA and PIPA, for a free and uncensored internet.

We just hope you stand with us all too.

P.S. If the forum goes down around 10 or so EST? That's us showing solidarity with the blackout, not server issues, nosiree.

 

[Cthulhu]

If I get it right:

* TLS would be taken down due to copyright infringement if Square decides to sue us. Despite being hosted in the Netherlands physically, we would still target a US audience.
* Our host would be blocked due to supplying us with hosting of copyrighted material
* Google and other search engines would be held responsible for providing links to us, both through links to our pages and indexing our images (which are in turn hosted by Google, making them the copyright infringement guys)
* and for all I know, your individual ISP's would have to block us as well, as is happening with, for example, TPB right now.

IANAL: this may all be false.

 

[Ryushikaze]

The real issue is that no one's entirely sure WHAT the scope of the law is supposed to be, but yes, it could be intended to be as far reaching as the scenario described.

The wording of the law is just that vague and exploitable. And that's REALLY a problem.

 

[Alex]

SOPA and PIPA, the proposed Internet Security acts currently in the US congress, also seek the ability to control the flow of information, to be able to control and censor the information online

But who are the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo?

 

[Joker]

Snake...If you won't be a prisoner to fate... Then go. Fulfill your destiny.

 

[Alex]

No, but seriously, SOPA is basically just Arsenal Gear. Our only hope for survival is to find the person in the world most likely to repeatedly sleep with their stepmother and turn to them for salvation.

 

[The_Kusabi_]

This is my first post on this site, and I just felt the need to write in this topic.
The United States government is always looking for new ways to control the world. Now that it is so low on cash, it probably is looking for alternatives to using the military. It ran itself dry getting into too many wars, and controlling the Internet is certainly much cheaper.
I hope it fails in its plans.

 

[Elisa Maza]

Spoiler: Obligatory

 

[Vixenish]

kusabi- except only someone who understands the internet as poorly as a 60 year old congressman would actually believe that controlling the internet is cheaper when they think about it.

http://vimeo.com/31100268

I think my favorite quote about this whole thing so far is:
The average age of a senator at the beginning of the 112th congress was 73 years old. Great, so our parents want to run the internet. How could anything go wrong with that?

 

[The_Kusabi_]

Yes Vixenish, this is very true.
Any attempts to control the world, through whatever means they may be, will inevitably end in failure, and the weakening of whatever power attempted control in the first place.
The United States may be the most powerful nation on Earth, but they can't control the world, or the Internet, and every time they attempt to, they only end up weakening themselves in one way or another. Either through loss of money on futile wars and endevours, or through gaining the distrust and distain of other countries.
If the United States keeps up the kind of nonsense it is always trying, one day it certainly *won't* be the most powerful nation anymore.