FayToday Participates in SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) Online Protest

Business News Politics Social
FayToday News
January 18, 2012
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Today marks an online protest against new legislature (House Bill 3261 on Oct. 26, 2011). FayToday usually holds firm on political issues, yet is growing to support ideas of fairness, openness, and freedom. We would stray from merely being opposition, but favor the inclusion of strategy, analytical thinking, and partisanship.

Today, market a historical moment in the web world as #SOPA floods Twitter and takes over site’s layout. Many web companies participated by darkening their site, adding censorship over their content, or banner ads describing their support. Most notably, Google, Yahoo, Wired News, Wikipedia, Craigslist, and even Facebook have come together to oppose this bill. Visit some of your favorite sites to view the January 17th stand: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). So, what is the bill an why is it important? Read further.

The House Bill 3261 is designed to help combat online piracy, such as sharing of music and media content. The worry is aimed around copyright infringement, which we agree is not great or could use more regulations to control. However, this bill has been rushed and various errors concern us. This new law would hold website owners responsible for users wrecklessness, which could result in court litigation, removal from search engines, barring from online advertising, and more. It doesn’t stop here. Streaming an event could be a crime. Internet service providers could be held responsible for heavy damages. It even makes small websites like ours susceptible to penalties and financial liability.

SIGN THE PETITION: click here (hosted by Google)

With this proposal, it would cause more censorship such as in China’s firewall. It would cause website owners to screen carefully every comment, posting, photo, or video. In return, real-time updates would not as likely and social media is threatened to exist as well. You may have noticed, FayToday enjoys social media and the power of a open web. As we grow into more media and news coverage of our community, we hope to keep our site free, without subscriptions, nor paid content. Many media and broadcast have moved to paid content, rather than adapt to new technology. These companies are large and risk alot, so downsizing to more online operations and evolving into web-based media is hard to do. Print media is now merely text on touchscreen devices. News is really posted via social media, from the source, us! FayToday hopes to adapt to these changes and grow more innovative info services for you.

To learn more about SOPA with details of the law, supporters of the bill, and current protest conditions, check the info below.

The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and was initially co-sponsored by:

Howard Berman (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), John Conyers (D-MI), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Timothy Griffin (R-AR), Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). As of January 16, 2012, there were 31 sponsors.

Organizations who oppose the bill: (PDF)