SOPA and Co., Internet Censorship and other fun games Options

[Shmeckie]

People...

This bill is political poison. It will not become law, and this is why...

- Very large technology companies are against it, and WILL pull their weight around, financially, if they have to.

- Voting for SOPA is going to be a giant shitstain on anyone running for re-election.

- President Obama is not going to shoot himself in the foot by signing a bill into law that will annihilate any chances of getting the youth vote he so desperately needs right now.

- The courts will not allow this thing to live a day. OBAMACARE is dead in the water, and that thing has more support among voters than this bill does, and is much less cut-and-dry about being unconstitutional than SOPA, which is blatantly unconstitutional.

Again, BILLS LIKE THIS COME UP IN CONGRESS ALL THE TIME. Every other torrent site you can go to makes absolute SURE you know about each one. They all end the same way. SOPA's just the first one the general public has been aware of, which makes it MORE likely to be shot down at some stage of the lawmaking process.

The only chance of survival SOPA has is a mass, cross-governmental conspiracy that would end up getting every single politician in office right now voted out.

All that said, yes, the honorable gentleman from North Carolina is an immense retard.

This post has been edited by Shmeckie: Dec 15 2011, 10:00 PM

[T_K_17]

I've been following stuff like this since 2008, Shmeckie, and I don't recall any bills as far-reaching as this one get as close to passing as this one in that period of time, so I wouldn't say this happens all the time.

Even if it did, I don't see any problem with everyone getting in a frenzy over it, since that is apparently the only thing preventing politicians from passing it. They wouldn't know how dangerous it was to their reelection campaigns if they didn't see how opposed to it the general public was.

[Shmeckie]

This is true, and a little anger is fine, but what I object to is the paranoia, melodrama, and grandstanding. Just look at that goofy-ass site in Alex's sig!

It's making the internet very annoying to browse right now. Especially all the dorks doing the "I'm censoring my site in protest" bullshit.

This post has been edited by Shmeckie: Dec 15 2011, 10:17 PM

[Master of AFTER]

This is true, and a little anger is fine, but what I object to is the paranoia, melodrama, and grandstanding. Just look at that goofy-ass site in Alex's sig!

Anti-censorship sites aren't exactly known for their restrained and level-headed approach when it comes to spreading awareness about policies that infringe upon people's rights. If you can find one that's a little less extremist in tone, please send me the link. Until then, I think I'd rather have people panicking over what they perceive as the looming shadow of an Orwellian nightmare future than go about quietly ignoring the latest in an ever-lengthening series of attempts by a technologically-illiterate government to cripple the most important advancement of free speech since the drafting of our Constitution.

To restate what I said on Twitter (or what I tried to say within the confines of that stupid character limit), the thing that disturbs me the most about this bill is the fact that it's gotten as far as it has. I would like to believe that we live in a nation led by people who value open communication and personal freedoms enough that policies as clearly dangerous as SOPA are identified as threats and destroyed before they can got off the ground, but obviously that isn't the case. You're right, the bill likely won't pass in the end; regardless, the fact that it's made it this far is still troubling. The fact that the bill has gotten any consideration at all shows that our elected officials are absolutely clueless when it comes to the nature of the internet and have no idea why censoring online communication would be so destructive to so many different aspects of our society. I mean, holy shit. We all knew the government was inept, but do they have to advertise it so blatantly?

[Soba]

I suppose it's the government itself that's kinda freaking me out more than anything, in retrospect. I long for a day when the government will have a decent grip of what it's doing.

[Shmeckie]

It is true; it is troubling that the bill has made it this far, but anyone following politics thus far would tell you it's not surprising to find that the government is this fucking inept.

Shit, they passed a bill that required Americans to buy a product. The constitution literally says you cannot do that, in the clearest of terms. Hence the third branch of government and their current beat-down of said legislation.

Our current goverment is morons. Hence my current cryo-stasis project.

President Christie. No sooner.

This post has been edited by Shmeckie: Dec 15 2011, 11:49 PM

[Soba]

Three cheers for Judicial, then?

[The Two-One-Five]

Three cheers for Judicial, then?

You mean the branch that literally stole their powers from under the table due to the loosely defined terms in the constitution?

Also, while I for the most part don't agree with this bill (due more to me being libertarian than caring about cheap bastards that don't want to spend 10 bucks on a DVD) I do think people are overreacting since there wasn't as much outrage when the net neutrality act was being talked about—which is more like what people perceive SOPA to be. This bill is just making so that common search engines like bing and google cannot show websites that make downloading easily.

[Master of AFTER]

Also, while I for the most part don't agree with this bill (due more to me being libertarian than caring about cheap bastards that don't want to spend 10 bucks on a DVD) I do think people are overreacting since there wasn't as much outrage when the net neutrality act was being talked about—which is more like what people perceive SOPA to be.

There was (and still is) plenty of outrage over net neutrality, and that's despite the implications of the principle being extremely vague in regards to how it would actually impact the internet. Most of the opposition I've seen is from people who think net neutrality is simply a ploy by internet service providers to jack up their rates and gouge customers who use the internet more than others.

SOPA, on the other hard, is much more targeted in what it intends to do and carries far more potentially disastrous implications for the average net user. It essentially makes the owners of any online network directly responsible for the actions of their users, which is a fucking nightmare for owners of any site that features user-generated content. Anyone in that category who doesn't have the resources to institute a system of constantly monitoring their users' every action and/or screening content uploads will likely be forced to end their services because of liability issues.

[Jack of Blades]

which would make the individual sites sponsors liable and cause them to lose money which would impact the economy worse then the pirating probably would.

[Shmeckie]

Major news outlets have started turning their attention to this, now. It was even on Drudge. If the people weren't gonna get pissed before, they certainly will, now.

And the likelihood drops further...

[Badass Overlord]

IRONY.

[Shmeckie]

Heeeeeey, look who's right about everything!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71284.html

[Tonfa]

Oh hey Arc, what've you been up to these days?

This post has been edited by Tonfa: Jan 10 2012, 05:39 PM

[Shmeckie]

That's cold, bro.

[Soba]

Ha!

In all seriousness, you're lucky you turned out to be right, else I'd have to break you for lyin' to me, boy.

[Tonfa]

This thing would've been followed through just as strictly as the law about not taking a lion into a movie theater in Maryland should it have come to pass within the first week anyway.

This post has been edited by Tonfa: Jan 10 2012, 08:46 PM

[Tonfa]

http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops

[The Chosen]

http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops

It looks like it's physically painful for Lamar to smile.

[Soba]

Ha, go figure.