Within the past two days, virtually any United States resident with Internet access has heard about the controversial legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or the Protect IP Act (PIPA) thanks to Wikipedia and Google. Everyone heard about the issue, but it’s not at all clear whether anyone really learned about it.
If you need a brief summary of the issue, SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA are legislative acts aimed at eliminating internet piracy. The bills, however, include language that may be too broad to have the intended effect, and critics of the bills say the acts will limit free speech on the Internet while entire websites could incur punishment for one small unintentional copyright infringement.
Scrolling through any Facebook or Twitter feed, one would think the majority of Internet users are passionate defenders of public freedoms, actively staying informed on important political issues affecting the nation. If this were the case, we would have seen our Facebook friends sharing the link to the petition against SOPA a long time ago: it was introduced in the House of Representatives on Oct. 26 of last year.
It’s easy for our generation to get riled up when people can’t access their beloved Reddit content, Tumblr blog or Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, it seems as if it’s difficult for our generation to act when other possibly controversial legislation, like the National Defense Authorization Act clause that allows for indefinite detention of anyone suspected of terrorist affiliations or acts without trial, are in motion.
Let’s say this first — the possible limitation of freedom of speech is not something any U.S. citizen should ever support. Ever. We’re glad people have unified to protect their rights. With that said, it’s preferable these kind of decisions are made after careful time-invested education on a topic as complex as internet piracy and copyright, not after five minutes of scrolling through a Facebook feed and clicking the “Like” or “Share” button because, well, everyone else is doing it.
This is especially true because there’s a lot of irony in reacting so vehemently against bill that was brought about because of something most (all) of us have done: pirating. Piracy is not a black-and-white issue, and we don’t want to brush a wide stroke by saying piracy is bad and no one should do it. But pausing to think before clicking “download” might be good once in a while. It’s hypocritical to complain about the government taking away our right to download copyrighted content when we’re taking away an artist’s right to make a living.
Fortunately, President Barack Obama has said he will veto the bill. But other issues also need more attention than a retweet: issues that need a call to your local representative or a live protest. Let’s just hope that next time we’re not so concerned with our Tumblr blog that Wikipedia has to take the lead.