SOPA Dead in the house (Stop Online Piracy Act that would have made our internets like china. Very strict, no youtubes, broken facebooks, etc etc. Anything a company, the movie industry, or the gov don't like on the internet would be forced to be taken down).
In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn't quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.
The online protests about the bill were surprising and large. They ranged anywhere from callng Representatives, companies, and senators to get them to change their mind, to actively moving domain's away from and targeting the business model of the companies that supported/lobbied for the bill. GoDaddy lost well over 100,000 domains in the space of about 10 days due to their involvement with these bills, along with other various targets. Reddit in particular has been influential in turning the tide against SOPA and PIPA, and is a good demonstration of how the Internet enables Democracy.
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PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basicly the same. It still includes the same DNS blocking and censoring system that the original SOPA did, just without the SOPA name. There are around 40 co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate so far, with no word on how many senators support the bill in addition to that. There will most likely need to be 60 votes in the Senate in order to invoke cloture and end an almost guaranteed filibuster.
So, what are your thoughts? Relieved? Happy? Let me know down below in the comments.
PIPA in the Senate is still alive though.
