Has anyone else lately tried to do a search and found that they were not able to access Wiki or many other information sites because tthese sites are protesting the new proposed open internet legislation? This is being done to make a point about how it might work if these laws are passed. This is big time propaganda. I am experiencing internet censorship right now by the very people that claim to stand for an open platform. What irony! I was seeking information and it was denied to me.

I haven't divulged my employer before on these boards because I know they can track me if they want to and I wouldn't want to be found to be on the other side of an issue that they may take action against me for. Well, at least on this issue I stand with the party line as it were. I am an engineer for the FCC and I can say for a fact that the worries of many here are severely misplaced. The websites that are blacking themselves out to simulate what it might be like if you don't do 'such and such' are the same ones that will control every little jot and tittle that you see when you log on if we let them have the control that they seek.

The government has no intentions of shutting down any free speech from any source of any nature. That's what's behind this legislation. The monied powers, however, do have a lot to gain by controlling the flow of traffic to their benefit. Don't you see? It's not the government that has anything to gain by controlling the flow of data, but the big corporations that depend on all of this for their monopolies. And they have a lot more to spend in advertising to make sure you think we are the ones to fear..

Well, I'm losing my train of thought as I'm trying to drink my way out of the stress I've built up in my daily grind. This is my first thread since I joined in '09 and I never actually planned to start one, I just usually read and occasionally reply. I guess this situation really pissed me off when I was searching something earlier and Wiki popped up a black screen with some kind of garbage trying to scare people that they won't have the internet they used to have anymore if the government has it's way. .

Well that's what I'm afraid of, that this kind of fear based advertising will win the day and the only kind of internet that will be left for us is what we can see coming now with all the scammers, phishers, and all other manner of criminals making the internet a place more like a dark alley than a modern thoroughfare.

Because you have to understand that this is just like a toll road and those that pay will be able to pass and those who can't will be blocked, unless we do away with the toll road and make it all public highway.

Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing.

Don't you find it strange that these blackout protests come just months after those adverts on wikipedia asking all their users to donate £3 pounds a month?

I'm confused.

What were we being lied to about?

SOPA isn't about quashing free speech (this is the first time I've heard this theory).

As far as I'm aware, SOPA/PIPA is about stopping piracy.

Yes, it's a bill to help out struggling small business's like Dreamworks, Micro$oft and Apple.

My only question would be how long is it until we can officially expect these changes. I can see with SOPA and PIPPA that they have this planned already. When will it be officially deployed and operational?

It appears that the corporations want to keep a tight amount of control on ALL the media in the world.

I can see that data is very limited in some respects today. Look at digital phone service providers that a person can subscribe to, and the ridiculous amounts for charges just for a SMALL amount of data each month. Oh and I don't even want to mention the fees for overages. There's lots of companies out there that are unfairly limiting people's communication already, I just see that noose may be getting a whole lot tighter very soon here.

I think the larger phone companies may have gotten in touch with the broadband service providers and suggested charging for every amount of data that goes through an internet connection. The executives are the ones who will make a killing off of this.

I've been able to access wikipedia all day long on my PC in spite of the "black out".

These groups are taking advantage of the general populus inability to know how the 'net works in order to propagate their anarchistic views where no one can tell anyone what they may or may not view, yet those entities are themselves telling US what WE can view under the guise of a protest against the government.

The US Gov't proposes limiting what one can see and say and the Internet responds by DEFINITIVELY showing what you can see and say.

Wikipedia has no right to limit what I can see, no more than any government has the right.

Protests respond to an action. A protest in response to a proposed action is no different than the government putting one in jail for alleged rhetoric against the leaders of the government.

Internet sites have censored you, and done so voluntarily, without being told by any government entity to do so.

Who has power?

I like how everyone thinks Wikipedia is completely blacked out right now. It's not. Google for whatever article you want. Say it's Kobe Bryant. Google "Wikipedia Kobe Bryant." Move your mouse to the side of the top search result until you see some arrows. Dragging the mouse over these arrows will show you a thumbnail of Googles cache of the Wikipedia article for Kobe Bryant. Click on the Cached and it will open the article!

Props to the movement
Today several congressmen have switched their side from pro to con on the issue when they couldn't get to their wiki. Fastest turnaround known by a public outcry.

I totally support the continued efforts. Remember, this isn't about having stronger legislation to stop pirates and piracy, this is to shut down entire websites should there be any copywrite stuff somewhere on the entire website...be it a music video on youtube that shuts down youtube, a copywrited picture on ATS, etc...

To be -for- sopa and pipa means either you are have no clue what the impact is, and are thinking the title is the actual intent, or your a total tool whom wants the government to tell you which websites you can look at (only big corporation for mega profit type websites).

The spirit, from a nieve person thinking the government is this wonderful daddy, is to stop them durned chinese movie hacking websites..but the reality is a full megacorp takeover of the information.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Props to the movement
Today several congressmen have switched their side from pro to con on the issue when they couldn't get to their wiki. Fastest turnaround known by a public outcry.

I totally support the continued efforts. Remember, this isn't about having stronger legislation to stop pirates and piracy, this is to shut down entire websites should there be any copywrite stuff somewhere on the entire website...be it a music video on youtube that shuts down youtube, a copywrited picture on ATS, etc...

To be -for- sopa and pipa means either you are have no clue what the impact is, and are thinking the title is the actual intent, or your a total tool whom wants the government to tell you which websites you can look at (only big corporation for mega profit type websites).

The spirit, from a nieve person thinking the government is this wonderful daddy, is to stop them durned chinese movie hacking websites..but the reality is a full megacorp takeover of the information.

Spot on man. To the thread author: Do you wish for corporations to be able to decide what you read on the Internet? You don't see what these bills are implying? You already know what happens when corporations control the media on tv, do you wish the same to happen to the net? They can shut down any site simply by saying one little thing violates copywrite laws. Is it really that big of deal to blackout a few websites for a day if it helps maintain the integrity of the Internet? Look at the bigger picture. Your Wikipedia isn't the only thing at risk here.

'Old World' mentality trying to control 'New World' paradigm.

Keep it open, let it self-regulate. Heck, if the bankers have that leeway, so should the net.

sites like reddit, google and wikipedia are voluntarily blacking out or altering their sites for ONE DAY to get the message across that SOPA/PIPA is bad. I don't see how you can claim it's a conspiracy and they are telling you what you can/can't look at. If SOPA passes, the ones who have the most to lose are the sites like google, wikipedia & reddit etc... because one single link to a site that has illegal content can get their entire site blacklisted and de-DNS'd (whatever that's actually called). Wikipedia for example, relies almost solely on user contributed edits (I'm sure Jimbo Wales does some here and there), so if SOPA passes, all it could take is one pissed off editor to edit a page, post such a link and have the whole site gone from general access. Google of course would have serious problems since it'd have to somehow "smarten" it's spiders up and somehow make sure they don't index any page that may have any copyrighted content on it, so a lose for google.

I'm sure you can honestly see the bigger picture here?

While you're busy with that though, you're ignoring the real conspiracy here. I notice the video in question has been posted a few times that I can see, so go watch it (in one of the other sopa threads).

If you've already seen it, why do you discount it? Thank you!

I find it amusing to see how many people try to justify copyright stealing and piracy by attaching the label 'free speech' to it

But then copyright law was never created to protect the authors, just the publishing companies rights