Tomorrow many significant internet sites [most of ’em American, but not all…] will go dark to protest the possibility of the passage of a couple of scary legislative bills in the US.
The thing I like about the internet is that I can cruise around and get as much information on any topic my wildest imagination can dream up. [Note: Pretty wild.] I’ve also learned to take with a grain of salt much of what I read — some of it makes me laugh, and some of it makes me mad, and some of it helps me learn.
The worry in the US right now is that upcoming legislation could lead to a kind of on-line libel freeze — that if you, I or Wikipedia links to a site that publishes questionable information, that we, as link-ers, are subject to lawsuit should said information prove indeed to be suspect.
Here’s a piece from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that explains things a bit more thoroughly: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
I’d really like to link you to the boingboing explanation of why this is also worriesome for nations other than the USA, but they’ve gone dark already. Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter…they’re all going dark tomorrow in solidarity against this legislation.
To finish, here [via the divine @MaryRobinette Kowal] is a piece to shed a little final LOLcat light on the matter.
And if you are in the US, a letter to your representative would be a good idea right about now!
More soon…
~kc
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