The Blackout
We interrupt our regularly scheduled debauchery to talk about some scary shit.
By now you have heard of SOPA and PIPA, two bills currently in Congress that threaten to destroy the internet as we know it.
If you haven’t heard of SOPA and PIPA, please check out the links at textsfromlastnight.com/#stopsopa
While the geriatric hearts of Congress may mean well (piracy = not awesome), the bill as written is like mixing Jäger with white wine. Now, imagine the hangover. They think it will stop piracy. The major networks and media companies assure them that it will. It won’t. Instead, this poorly written bill will relentlessly police users like you and publishers like us. It will erase sites like TFLN from search engines for even a small infraction. In fact, the cost for one infraction would be so significant that we could not afford to pay for our servers. What’s worse: if that happened, we couldn’t even go to Tumblr, WordPress or Blogger because they wouldn’t exist either. Same goes for sites like YouTube, Reddit, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter. Scary shit indeed.
Today, we’re asking you to write, call, stalk, text, or visit your representative.
If you don’t know who to call, we got you covered. Just head to: americancensorship.org
or
See a list of reps here: house.gov/representatives
But that’s not all. Today we need action. Tomorrow, we’re asking you to care:
“The mainstream news media was not going to tell you about SOPA or PIPA. Many of your elected officials want to push through harmful legislation because their supporters demand it, and they know you’re unlikely to hold them accountable. It’s vitally important to stop SOPA or PIPA from passing, but what’s even more important is that you start paying attention and demand better from your government. Even if we stop SOPA, the larger problem continues.” – RWW
