Protect IP Bill - Censoring America

There is a terrifying new Bill in the works over in the jolly old US of A. It’s called the *Protect IP* bill. It’s been backed by some pretty powerful conglomerates and it’s primarily driven by the entertainment industry. While I wholly oppose piracy and believe in supporting artists for the hard work they do, I also utterly disagree with what is happening right now, *this*very moment, to the Internet. The Protect IP bill will bring to accountability any provider of a platform or medium or means to share content – ISPs, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, uncountable forums, any blogs and many other outlets for free speech. Anywhere that users can share the latest tune by their favourite artist will become a potential target for lawsuits by the rich and the powerful.

Here’s a nifty infographic to summarise this shit.

Not all hope is lost, though. AVAAZ and a bunch of other sites are bringing people together to let the US Senate know that this bill has opposition and that people are fed up of corporations trying to stifle free speech for the purposes of profit. Sorry, that sounded far too communistic but I couldn’t think of a better way of wording that.

Here’s another great explanation of why this shit is horrible