The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are two controversial pieces of legislation pending in the House and Senate respectively. Today, 10,000 sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit are “going dark” or otherwise altering their homepages in protest of these bills. Opponents of PIPA and SOPA strongly believe that, if passed into law, this legislation will stifle Internet innovation, harm technology companies that create jobs, and put undue powers of surveillance into the hands of the federal government.
In particular, SOPA and PIPA would empower government agencies to:
1. Block web access to sites both inside and outside of the United States, based on a single copyright infringement claim.
2. Damage existing Internet security in the process of giving the government greater power to monitor web content (unless the Senate makes changes under consideration in its bill).
3. Allow federal agents to block a web site’s traffic, ad revenue, and search traffic if it is accused of enabling copyright infringement.
4. Require content platforms such as Facebook and Amazon.com to monitor the content produced by users for copyright violations.
SOPA and PIPA would empower companies to have web sites shut down without proving copyright infringement accusations in a court of law, and also lay a large burden on the tech sector to police content.
Read more at thegrio.com
Recent Stories:
Scientists Study The Impact Of War On The Mind
Women And Their Stories: Janaya Trotter
26 States Fighting Obama Health Care Overhaul
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER – @1230AMWDBZ
JOIN THE OFFICIAL BUZZ FACEBOOK FAN PAGE
DOWNLOAD THE FREE BUZZ MOBILE APP
