Stop SOPA and PIPA, get educated on the issue

Websites all over the Internet plan to “go dark” today in support of the stop SOPA movement. So, what does this mean?

The House Judiciary Committee attempted to finalize SOPA and PIPA before the Christmas season last year. Luckily, online communities met the attempt with stern opposition. Now, sites going dark are taking a more aggressive stand against Internet censorship.

If the bills should pass (they are going up against Congress this time around) they would make something as common as streaming copyrighted content a crime. The maximum penalty for this “crime” would be five years in prison.

Those in support of the bills say they believe the measures would protect the intellectual property market and corresponding industries, jobs and revenues. The No. 1 complaint from sites like Wikipedia and Google, who are in support of Stop SOPA, is that the bills would violate Americans’ First Amendment rights. In other words, the U.S.’s Internet could be censored for the first time.

Here is a list of countries where censorship prohibits users from surfing freely: Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Tunisia, Syria, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Burma, North Korea, etc.