Tech | October 26, 2011 | 13 comments

URGENT ACTION NEEDED: New Internet Blacklist Bill Could Shut Down Twitter And Youtube!

source: http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_house/?referring_akid=a2223160.668049.fEk_sI&sourc...

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Vierotchka
A bit of an emergency: The rumor all over Capitol Hill is that the House version of the Internet Blacklist Bill will be introduced this week, probably on Wednesday.

Our allies on the Hill say the bill's so bad that it could effectively destroy Youtube, Twitter, and other sites that rely on user-generated content by making the sites' owners legally responsible for everything their users post.

Nobody will want to take that risk, so sites like Youtube and Twitter could be forced to shut down.

Facebook, Myspace, and Google+ would be at risk. The cyberlocker and streaming provisions could affect your iPhone, Android, AmazonCloud, Pandora, Grooveshark and even your email accounts.

It also includes provisions that would make it a felony to stream unlicensed content -- including cover band performances, karaoke videos, video game play-throughs, and more.

And all of this is being driven by a few major corporations who are trying to protect their private profits.

Will you use the form at right to ask your Congressmember not to cosponsor the legislation, at least until they've heard our concerns?

(click on the link to access the links with which you can post this on your facebook and twitter, and access the above-mentioned form)
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13 comments // URGENT ACTION NEEDED: New Internet Blacklist Bill Could Shut Down Twitter And Youtube!

  • bailey78
  • sugarmountian
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +2
      Wyley_Wombat  

    • This sounds a lot like the Chinese model of free speech on the internet. In this country it would be: Say whatever you want as long as you don't hurt the state, offend religious zealots, denigrate big corporations, or contradict the corporate media.

    • 7 months ago
  • remanns
  • maasanova
    • +2
      maasanova  

    • I remember a few years ago the shutdown of the intenet was a conspiracy theory here on Current. Im goint to bump some of those old posts that foreshadowed a lot of these events.

    • 7 months ago
  • faye59
    • +3
      faye59  

    • It won't pass the Senate and the President wouldn't sign it in a million years. Something tells me the Repubs would have collective heart-attacks if they felt any business lost a nickel.LOL Thanks for the heads up, though.

    • 7 months ago
  • ZenCitizen
    • 0
      ZenCitizen  
    • faye59:

      How much you bet? If either of us wins, we'll donate a bag of food ($25.00) to the people manning the Ramparts on Occupy Wall Street, location of our choice. that Bll is going to pass both houses and signed by the president.

    • 7 months ago
  • faye59
  • artemis6
  • Leen61
    • +6
      Leen61  

    • Signed! This is all about shutting down dissent and free speech! They don't want the people's media getting word out against the corporations and wrong doing....like with the police at OWS and elsewhere.

    • 7 months ago
  • artemis6
  • chew_chew
  • Vierotchka
    • +3
      Vierotchka  
    • Image

    • http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/protectip_docs/

      Oppose PROTECT-IP Act: U.S. Government Wants To Censor Search Engines And Browsers

      Tell Congress to Kill COICA 2.0, the Internet Censorship Bill
      UPDATE: Great news. We don't always see eye-to-eye with Google, but we're on the same team this time. Google CEO Eric Schmidt just came out swinging against PROTECT IP, saying, "I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems." And then he went even further. From the LA Times:

      "If there is a law that requires DNSs, to do X and it's passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it," he said, according to the report. "If it's a request the answer is we wouldn't do it, if it's a discussion we wouldn't do it."

      Big content is irate. The Motion Picture Association of America released a statement saying, "We’ve heard this ‘but the law doesn’t apply to me’ argument before – but usually, it comes from content thieves, not a Fortune 500 company. Google should know better."

      ORIGINAL: We knew that members of Congress and their business allies were gearing up to pass a revised Internet Blacklist Bill -- which more than 325,000 Demand Progress members helped block last winter -- but we never expected it to be this atrocious. Last year's bill has been renamed the "PROTECT IP" Act and it is far worse than its predecessor. A summary of it is posted below.

      Senators Leahy and Hatch pretended to weigh free speech concerns as they revised the bill. Instead, the new legislation would institute a China-like censorship regime in the United States, whereby the Department of Justice could force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users' access to websites, and scrub the American Internet clean of any trace of their existence.

      Furthermore, it wouldn't just be the Attorney General who could add sites to the blacklist, but the new bill would allow any copyright holder to get sites blacklisted -- sure to result in an explosion of dubious and confused orders.

      Will you urge Congress to oppose the PROTECT IP Act? Just add your name at right.

      (click on the link)

    • 7 months ago
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