P.I.P.A, S.O.P.A. Or NO-PA

Protesters gather in Times Square to oppose the S.O.P.A. and P.I.P.A.

bill.

S.O.P.A, P.I.P.A. or N.O.P.A.

article by Libby Graalum

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         Are you with or against sopa or pipa... Or Neither?

As many know, Protect Internet Privacy Act, or P.I.P.A., is a safety, privacy, and copyright law for public websites all over the internet that was set in motion by the U.S. congress, and shown to the public, on December 17, 2011. Internet privacy is a big issue to users of many world-wide used websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia.

             

The acknowledgment of “Privacy” goes to a wide variety from safety from hackers on the web, to copyright laws that involves music, pictures, and other documents that are not(and sometimes are) protected by Copyrights (©) that are used on many different blogs, facebook pages, twitter accounts, and many other public online sites. This act caused thousands of well known sites to power down for 24 hours as an action to protest the bill, leading to petitions signed by millions of people of America to oppose the P.I.P.A. This started S.O.P.A., which stands for Stop Online Privacy Act. The interruption of the websites also made six senators back down from P.I.P.A. and S.O.P.A.

But what if you just want it to end and there be no disagreement? Well, NO-pa was created by viewers of the protests for P.I.P.A. and S.O.P.A. wanting to go against the argument. Having the entire bill stop would make websites maintain their statuses and URLs’ and the internet would essentially ‘go-back-to-normal’. Could everyone simply forget the protests and petitions that so many citizens invested their time and money in? Surveys show that about 60% of people have either forgotten about  P.I.P.A. and S.O.P.A. or had no idea what it was. Not to mention that an estimated 75% interview about P.I.P.A. and S.O.P.A. didn’t care about it anymore and thought that it won’t affect them anymore. Considering that Wikipedia, Youtube, and the other websites that blacked out for protesting P.I.P.A. and S.O.P.A, are now back and running as usual, life can go on as if the bill was never considered by the US government.

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