You've probably heard the terms SOPA and PIPA in the news lately. They're acronyms for bills that the Senate will vote on January 24th.
While the intent of the legislation is good, the execution is terrible. It creates government censorship of the internet similar to what we see in China, and puts sites like SailboatOwners.com directly in its crosshairs.
For example, SailboatOwners.com (as well as Cruisers Forum, Sailnet, Sailing Anarchy, or any other sailing forum) could be effectively shut down without due process, and exposed to endless litigation, because of material posted by our users. Search engines would be required to delete us from search results.
In order to avoid this, forum moderation may need to be increased to an absurd level that could become a hardship for web sites and users alike.
AOL, Craigs List, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, reddit, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga oppose this legislation and many sites, including Google, Craigs List, Wikipedia, reddit, and dozens of others are either dark today or modifying their site in protest.
As we all know, laws like this are difficult to overturn once they're passed. Please let your representatives know that you're in favor of a free internet.
For more information:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/
Write your legislators:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
Sign a petition:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
One last favor: please allow me to keep this post here by refraining from comments with political generalities. If you have a comment to make please make it specific to SOPA. Thank you!
While the intent of the legislation is good, the execution is terrible. It creates government censorship of the internet similar to what we see in China, and puts sites like SailboatOwners.com directly in its crosshairs.
For example, SailboatOwners.com (as well as Cruisers Forum, Sailnet, Sailing Anarchy, or any other sailing forum) could be effectively shut down without due process, and exposed to endless litigation, because of material posted by our users. Search engines would be required to delete us from search results.
In order to avoid this, forum moderation may need to be increased to an absurd level that could become a hardship for web sites and users alike.
AOL, Craigs List, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, reddit, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga oppose this legislation and many sites, including Google, Craigs List, Wikipedia, reddit, and dozens of others are either dark today or modifying their site in protest.
As we all know, laws like this are difficult to overturn once they're passed. Please let your representatives know that you're in favor of a free internet.
For more information:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/
Write your legislators:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
Sign a petition:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
One last favor: please allow me to keep this post here by refraining from comments with political generalities. If you have a comment to make please make it specific to SOPA. Thank you!
