SOPA: Will There Be Censorship of the Internet in the United States?
#SOPA: Did you realize it’s the same Internet censorship the US State Depart fights in Iran, China & Syria?bit.ly/IPSOPA
— Intrapromote (@intrapromote) January 18, 2012
If you visit a handful of popular websites today, like research giant Wikipedia, you’re going to see that the entire English-speaking portion of the site has gone dark for 24 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act that was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives on October 26, 2011. Better known as SOPA (or as some say, the “internet censorship bill”), the introduced measures, if passed, would allow the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of playing any role in copyright infringement.
Online piracy is undoubtedly a problem for many copyright holders, but SOPA is far from a solution. Even the author of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) came under fire last week when Vice contributor Jamie Lee Curits Taete pointed out that Smith himself violated the provisions of the proposed legislation for failing to give proper attribute to artwork that was used on the Representative’s official website. Since, the artwork has been removed and the website has been updated.
Beyond the difficulty of policing intellectual property, critics of the legislation point out significant flaws, including one of the original provisions, which would allow blocking DNS requests for any sites that were deemed to be hosting content illegally. This is the same internet censorship that the U.S. State Department constantly fights against in Iran, China, and Syria. Lamar Smith’s office released a statement last week, however, saying that the DNS provision should be removed from the bill until further examination.
So what exactly would it mean for businesses and websites if SOPA were to come to fruition?
First of all, the implications to search engine results and social media sites are substantial. Vint Cerf, a Vice President at Google, put it this way in a letter to CNet, ”Requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented ‘censorship’ of the Web,” implying that the cure for online piracy may be much worse than the disease.
Major companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter sent a joint letter to Congress, stating “We support the bills’ stated goals – providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign ‘rogue’ Web sites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. However, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of Web sites.”
Further, the proposed SOPA legislation does more than just try to stop online piracy. Instead, it removes a core tennet of the American justice system, due process. Under SOPA, a court order can shut down any site and force any search engine to stop sending traffic to the site before a full investigation can take place. It could potentially allow the companies with the deepest pockets to control what content you are allowed to read and share on the web and on sites like Facebook. Taken a step further, it could even contend that an individual simply re-tweeting without appropriate attribution could be held legally liable for damages.
So what do you think about SOPA? How would it impact your business or the way you interact online? Would you continue to share photos on Facebook?
Learn More About SOPA:
- Infographic on SOPA
- List of companies that support SOPA from the House Judiciary Committee
- Complete Guide to Contacting Your Representative about SOPA
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