SOPA / PIPA Blackout

On January 18th, the LigerBots site went dark alongside some of the internets largest to protest SOPA, PIPA, and censorship in all its forms. The site displayed the following message in place of normal content. 

January 18th, 2011

As you might have noticed, many sites - wikipedia and reddit among them - are blacked out today to protest legislation pending in the House and Senate. This legislation would allow copyright owners to have sites hosting their copyrighted content taken down.

In this modern day of a participatory internet, many sites are bound to be blocked for failing to police their users. Can you imagine if the Wikipedia foundation needed to review every edit to Wikipedia before letting it go live?

Additionally, the government and large businesses could easily abuse their power. This legislation gives the government a massive firewall. Modifying the firewall to block dissidents instead of copyright holders would be trivial. Facebook could watch competitiors closely for copyright content, and knock the smaller social network offline before it gained a following.

The LigerBots site is down today to protest SOPA and PIPA, the bills described above. The LigerBots believe strongly in freedom of speech and net neutrality. Freedom of speech is the first of your four freedoms, and net neutrality ensures freedom of speech online.

Never forget your rights.

American Censorship Day Electronic Freedom Frontier Reddit Technical Description