Time is Running Out Fast to Speak Out Against SOPA

Rob Williams

Rob Williams

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We haven't talked about SOPA in our news section before, and that fault is to be corrected here. As a Canadian who inherently doesn't care about politics, I ignored SOPA and its repercussions for the most part until recently. I didn't expect it to have a chance of passing, but as time nears closer to a House vote, the reality of it being passed is all-too-real. Fact is, at this rate, it will be passed.

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Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!
 
RainMotorsports

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
.....Yes because youtube blocking things by country didnt exist before the now nearly finished off sopa bill..... Oh wait it did.
 
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Rob Williams

Rob Williams

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RainMotorsports said:
.....Yes because youtube blocking things by country didnt exist before the now nearly finished off sopa bill..... Oh wait it did.
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No of course not, I was kidding. I am in Canada where SOPA wouldn't affect.

It's just ironic that a movie clip called "FREEDOM" is blocked ;-)

TheCrimsonStar said:
Websites are planning a blackout tomorrow to mimic the effects of SOPA if passed, and to show how pissed off everyone will get because their favorite website is gone. Websites include Wikipedia, Reddit, Facebook and even Google (yes you read that right)]
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This is a good thing, but I'd be surprised if Facebook or Google went ahead with it. Chances are those sites make a quarter million dollars a minute, so if they go ahead with this, they deserve some major props.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

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Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

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Google.co.uk is completely normal, I guess they're leaving other countries out of it (which is odd considering it won't be just US sites affected, though admittedly, nothing we can do here).
 
TheCrimsonStar

TheCrimsonStar

Tech Monkey
Tharic-Nar said:
(which is odd considering it won't be just US sites affected, though admittedly, nothing we can do here).
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This is both true and false at the same time. Say you have a website that is hosted outside the US...for example in Canada. The only thing the US government can do is censor that site from within the borders of the country. If they don't like a certain site, they censor it for anybody trying to view it inside the US, but anyone outside the US's border can view the website like normal. For anybody inside the US, this website would essentially be gone. So yes, that particular web address's US visitors will be cut to nil, but they would still have their non-US visitors. On the other hand if the website is hosted in the US, they can completely take it down altogether.
 
RainMotorsports

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
Wikipedia English isnt actually down. The message is drawn over the page after it loads. Page is still there in source. Reason for this is not to disrupt API services other sites use to get info from wikipedia.

All the pages are otherwise available from the mobile version of the site (en.m. in front of any url). They really didn't want their site to be inaccessible. Good job mr wales, not so much the nuclear option, more like the picket site in your face option.
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

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Unless the website has a .com TLD, which the US own; in which case, the website in question would go dead worldwide until they got a new domain, regardless of where the site is hosted... Remember those wonderful takedown notices?
 
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RainMotorsports

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
TheCrimsonStar said:
Heyyyyy lookie here. Ironic, no? Owned, you hypocrite.
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Actually the fault is likely entirely someone elses. Unless his favorite hobby is web development someone on his campaign team or someone who was hired who is at fault will get the blame and maybe even get sued, twice.

Sure people who already hated him will still hate him but hardly much will change.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
RainMotorsports said:
Wikipedia English isnt actually down. The message is drawn over the page after it loads. Page is still there in source. Reason for this is not to disrupt API services other sites use to get info from wikipedia.
Click to expand...

Ahh, I was wondering about that.

Tharic-Nar said:
Unless the website has a .com TLD, which the US own; in which case, the website in question would go dead worldwide until they got a new domain, regardless of where the site is hosted... Remember those wonderful takedown notices?
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Waiiit. The US owns the rights to ".com"? That seems a little ridiculous given most of the entire Internet uses that extension. That makes things even scarier.

RainMotorsports said:
Actually the fault is likely entirely someone elses. Unless his favorite hobby is web development someone on his campaign team or someone who was hired who is at fault will get the blame and maybe even get sued, twice.
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I agree... it's the idiot webmaster that made that goof, not this idiot politician. Even so, his website could be taken down with SOPA in place, regardless of who's fault it was. That's ironic.
 
Kougar

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Wiki and Minecraft didn't go down... you could hit the escape key and Wikipedia would go back to being a normal site ;) I didn't find that out until later, but I was just using the Google cache page instead anyway. Minecraft never went down at all, they only displayed a large message of protest.

Both bills are still alive, and SOPA doesn't seem to be fading away. PIPA lost a lot more support though, it's almost but not quite stalled in the Senate...
 
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