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Posts Tagged ‘SOPA’

Facebook and Twitter to be closed down!

No, this isn’t some viral scare story with no foundation in truth.  This could happen, and it could happen soon.

The American government, at the request of the Hollywood movie moguls, are debating a bill, SOPA, which if passed would give the power to immediately close down any site that it wants.  Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr etc. are particularly at risk.

The internet giants, including, Google, Twitter, AOL, eBay, Yahoo and Facebook have joined forces to kill off this bill.  In an open letter to the US House Judiciary Committee they say;

“We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation’s cybersecurity. We cannot support these bills as written and ask that you consider more targeted ways to combat foreign “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that has made the Internet such an important driver of economic growth and job creation.” 

Google spokesman, Matt Cutts has this to say; 

“If SOPA becomes law, it could stifle the innovation (and jobs) that the technology industry creates. That’s why Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Google, Yahoo, eBay, AOL, LinkedIn, and Zynga all oppose SOPA. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue–Red State thinks SOPA is a bad idea too.”

So what can you do? 

Sadly, for those outside of the US the answer is very little, other than contact all of your American friends, family and colleagues and ask them to contact their congressman to register their protest.

For those in the US there are a few more options.

First you can contact your congressman and express your concerns that this bill can, and will do serious harm to the internet.

Or you can sign the online petition here, KILL SOPA BILL which is hosted on the Whitehouse server.

And then again here: American censorship  

Finally, webmaster you can, (and should) link to American censorship, black out your logo and give details on how you oppose SOPA. 

This bill WILL affect us all, I urge you to act now.

STOP SOPA