Is Congress Trying to Censor the Web?

Wikipedia, Google and hundreds of other online sites in English are blacked out Wednesday in an unprecedented protest against anti-piracy legislation proposed by the U.S. Congress.

The sites include the popular Los Angeles-based blog Boing Boing, Mozilla, WordPress, Reddit and TwitPic. They will be dark throughout Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act being debated in Congress and the PROTECT IP Act making its way through the U.S. Senate.

“Boing Boing is offline today, because the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that would certainly kill us forever,” says a brief statement in white letters framed against a pitch-black background on the site’s home page.

‘Free and Open Internet’ Threatened

The protesting sites argue that the legislation, intended to crack down on online movie theft and music piracy, infringes on the “free and open Internet” and will introduce Internet censorship laws of foreign countries.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called Wikipedia’s blackout “silly” and “foolish”—and supporters of the legislation, including The Motion Picture Assn. Of America, hailed the bills' effort to protect intellectual property.

Michael O’Leary, the executive leading the MPAA’s campaign for the proposed anti-piracy law, told the Los Angeles Times that the Congressional effort helps preserve creative content—something that, he asserted, websites have failed to do.

Last Saturday, media tycoon and News Corporation's chairman Rupert Murdoch tweeted: "So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery."

Aol, which owns Patch, partnered with several Internet and technology companies, including Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Yahoo and Zynga, to voice concerns that the the two bills would stifle innovation and job creation. Here is an excerpt from the joint statement:

“We support the bills’ stated goals—providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign “rogue” websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of the action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites.”

Google: 'Please Don't Censor the Web!'

To publicize its opposition to the anti-piracy legislation, Google has blacked out its own name on its homepage and posted a link directly below it that reads: “Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!” (See image in the photo section.) Clicking on the link leads to a graphic (titled “Congress, Can You Hear Us?”), which evidently depicts a groundswell of public opinion by some 3 million people against the proposed law.

White House Supports Internet Freedom

The Obama administration has also called for changes in the legislation. In a White House statement, it indicated it “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The campaign against SOPA appears to be gaining steam, and with the White House’s declaration that it would oppose the bill, SOPA appears dead on arrival.

Still, SOPA could make a resurgence if its supporters rewrite the bill, in keeping with the White House’s suggested but unspecified changes.