Is Congress Trying to Censor the Web with SOPA?

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.

They will be dark throughout the day to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act being debated in Congress and the PROTECT IP Act making its way through the U.S. Senate.

Patch and its parent company Aol are not participating in the blackout.

"As written, we cannot support the bills. We believe an open Internet is critical for innovation, job creation, and the sustained growth of Internet businesses. We are in the process of working directly with lawmakers to improve the bills," said Tekedra N. Mawakana, AOL's senior vice president of public policy.

‘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.

On 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 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. 

“We support the bills’ stated goals—providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign “rogue” websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting," the statement reads. "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 three 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.”