Displaying items by tag: Net Neutrality

In the very recent past the NSA and other governmental agencies have tried to show Anonymous as a terrorist organization. To do this they are using very basic definitions of the term; after all a terrorist uses fear to achieve their goals. However, if you can qualify Anonymous as a terrorist organization based on the loose definition and the fact that fear of them uncovering the truth has led to changes in many areas then you can also classify the MPAA, RIAA, NSA and other organizations as terrorist too.

There are times when I read about something on the Internet and I have to stop and wonder if the site reporting on the item has gotten something wrong. As an example I recently read about a new act called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). According to the article on TorrentFreak.com this new act will allow corporations the ability to shut down websites by submitting a complaint to the sites host. Now I thought that this sounded unlikely so I looked into the act and found out that it is even more disturbing that what TorrentFreak posted.

It turns out that the bill is a revision of one what was first presented in the Senate call the “Protect IP Act”. This revision was supposed to correct issues with that first bill and instead has only succeeded in extending them and making them more vague. For example in the bill it uses the verbiage that includes any site or “portion of” a site that is "dedicated to theft of U.S. property," this is a very broad category that has no clear definition. For example if someone posts a YouTube video with copyrighted music in the background, is that theft? What about a cover of a song where the music and lyrics were legally purchased?  These two “violations” could get the offending website cut off from payment provides (PayPal), advertisers (advertisers Google Adsense etc.), and get the site completely shut down.

To make matters worse the shutdown order would not go to the site owner, but directly to the Payment providers, advertisers, and ISPs for the host of the site (or if the owners host it themselves their ISP). The The ISPs, advertisers and payment providers must comply to the complaint or they face fines. The site owner does not get notification from the complaint, they just get shut down. To add insult to injury the site owner has limited rights to appeal the complaint before or after they have the rug pulled out from under them.  

This new legislation is an abomination and nothing more than an attempt to grant corporations (not just the media) license to shut down any site that offends them. To give you an example of what can happen if this bill is allowed to go through, let’s say that a site writes up an article criticizing a company for a product and uses images of the packaging or quotes from their website in the review. Under this new act that company who holds copyright over the logo’s and the wording on the website could send a complaint to the site’s host, advertisers and payment providers and get them locked out.  This type of heavy handed control over the internet is simply terrifying.

To combat this most of the consumer advocacy groups have challenged the bill and congress men and women from both sides of the fence have spoken out about this. There is also an American Censorship Day planned. The Fight For the Future Organization is asking web sites to post a snipet of code to their websites on November 16th the code will pop-up with a fake seizure notice that will explain the new bill and how each user can act to contact their congress person to try and get this bill stopped now.



We will be participating in this and urge all of you to help out with this as this act is about more than copyrighted content. It is about control of the content on the internet.

Source TorrentFreak

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So it’s the 5th of November at 9:01am (Eastern Time in the US) and Facebook is still up. I know that there will be countless articles and comments online today about this and many of them will be less than complimentary. However, the fact of the matter is that this “Op” was probably never really sanctioned by the collective in the first place. Instead this was most likely the work of a handful of members that were angry at Facebook.

If you remember our article on this back on the 22nd of September we said “As for Facebook and the 5th of November… I think they are safe, but not because Facebook is secure or well coded (it is not). It is because Facebook really does represent Freedom of speech and expression; even if the owners are rather arrogant and foolish.”  We just had a feeling that doing something like this would not be in Anonymous’ best interest and again it would be attacking one of the things that they do represent; a free and open internet (freedom of speech and expression).

Of course the argument can be raised that Facebook is a giant corporation that rakes in tons of cash and has used its members’ images, information and other items to become quite wealthy. This has upset many Anonymous members if some of the comments we have seen are any indication. However the general consensus is that Facebook is a good thing even if there are some areas that are concerning.

In the end Facebook is more user driven than a corporation like Fox, or Bank of America, or the Zeta Cartel. These companies prey off of the general public instead of allowing them the freedom to express themselves as they see fit and to communicate with the rest of the world if they chose. So today when you hear that Anonymous “dropped” another Op or more about how Chaotic they are and their lack of organization (they are a collective, but people keep missing that) just remember that while some of their members have done things that are less than acceptable (like releasing the home addresses of police officers) in the end the vast majority really are after a more open and free internet. This is why things like Facebook, Myspace and most other Social Networking sites are pretty safe.

...Of course the day has just started...

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