The SOPA Blackout Protest started by Wikipedia and joined (in spirit) by other sites such as Google, Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr all seek to raise awareness about the dangers of censorship of the internet. Major proponents of the bill are the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Industry Association of America (MPIAA), but the real dangers of the bill lie not in the reasonably genuine concerns of the entertainment industry but the potential for further abuse by private interest with money and access to people in power in government.

Major Sites Join SOPA Blackout Protest

Most of the real heavy hitters in the internet industry have come out and joined the SOPA Blackout protest. It began with Wikipedia and was joined or acknowledged by sites such as Google, Reddit, Tumblr, and Craigslist. In fact, a FoxNews quote from the founder of Craigslist summed up my concerns about SOPA (and its Senate bill sister PIPA – the protect intellectual property act):

Craig Newmark, the founder of the popular site Craigslist, on Tuesday joined the fight against what he called “a really bad law coming out of Washington.”

“[SOPA and its Senate counterpart Protect IP] allow people with lots of money, and lots of lawyers to take down Internet sites they don’t like by exploiting some loopholes and lack of oversight,” he said in a video screened during a hearing in Washington, D.C. (source:Fox News)

How Internet Marketing Could Be Impacted by SOPA

For me the potential impact of SOPA as an internet marketing professional is important. As a fairly large generator of original content, I would LIKE to believe that the SOPA / PIPA bills would help me protect so much of the original work I have put on the web. On the other hand, I find it entirely more likely that people with deep pockets and even deeper influence will abuse the censorship powers granted in the Stop Online Piracy Act. I suspect that this huge power grab will be used to further marginalize small internet marketing entrepreneurs like myself (and you… if you’re likely reading this).

Join the SOPA Blackout Protest

There are a number of constructive ways to join the SOPA Blackout Protest without necesarily jeopardizing your site’s business. The easiest way is to sign one of the SOPA protest petitions circulating the internet or by contacting your Senator and Congressman and directly expressing your concerns about censorship of the web.

Although the bills under their present form seem to be tabled for at least a few days my understanding is that there will be action on them again in February. While we can be fairly certain internet industry giants such as Google and Wikipedia will remain interested adversarial parties to censorship of the web we should not continue to do our part. Our part continues to be to remain both interested and informed about proposals involving censorship of the web by government agencies which are, can be, and have been bought and influenced by people and corporations of wealth and power.

Barry Livingstone is the author of The Social Networking Business Plan with Onefineham - Pick Up a Copy Today!

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