---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Holmes Wilson <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 10:37 AM Subject: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Huge Sites Come Out to Fight Worst Bill in Internet History
####FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE#### Unprecedented Strike-Back from the Internet - Huge Sites Come Out to Fight Worst Bill in Internet History Hundreds of Sites Sign On for American Censorship Day on Nov 16, including reddit, Boing Boing, EFF, Creative Commons, and Hype Machine November 15, 2011 Contact: [email protected] and 508-474-5248 NOVEMBER 15, 2011 - In the past two days, hundreds of websites have signed on to participate in American Censorship Day, a day of protest against US House bill HR3261, ‘SOPA’, which would institute the first widespread governmental website blocking regime in US history. American Censorship Day will take place on November 16, 2011, and is organized at http://americancensorship.org. A larger list of participating sites is available there. “Nobody wants to see an internet where the government can block virtually any website, and where YouTube stars could go to jail for singing a song, or posting a remix.” said Tiffiniy Cheng of Fight for the Future, which is organizing the day of action along with other organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, Demand Progress, and FSF. “The momentum right now is incredible, the internet is finally standing up to defend itself against Hollywood. We’re seeing sites join the November 16 action at a faster and faster rate,” she added. “Sites that participate will be ‘censoring’ their website logos for the day with a black bar, a symbol of the censorship that we are fighting to prevent. Some sites are covering their entire sites with a censorship message. We will all be asking every single one of our US visitors to contact their members of Congress.” The day of protest is timed to coincide with the day the House of Representatives begins official discussion on creating the first internet censorship system with a hearing at 10 A.M. on the bill. Censorship opponents are essentially being cenored out of the hearing: It will overwhelming feature witnesses those who support the bill, despite widespread opposition in the tech, civil liberties, and human rights communitites. “This bill would make the United States government implement the same technology that China and Libya have used to prevent their citizens from accessing websites that they don’t approve of. Do we really want the goverment telling US citizens what they can and can’t access on the internet? How can we oppose internet censorship abroad if we do it here at home?” said Holmes Wilson, of Fight for the Future. The broad coalition of opposition comes as internet investors and entreprenuers have grown increasingly worried that the bill would harm innovation and investment in Sillicon Valley, because of new liability and risks for websites. "It contains provisions that will chill innovation. It contains provisions that will tinker with the fundamental fabric of the internet. It gives private corporations the power to censor. And best of all, it bypasses due legal process to do much of it," wrote James Allworth of Harvard Business School. Websites that wish to participate in American Censorship Day can join at http://americancensorship.org/ A video explaining the ramifications of the bill, including embed code, can also be found on the site. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
