The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a terrible piece of legislation that should never come up for a vote on the floor of Congress.
In its current form, the bill allows the Department of Justice to shut down any website that they determine to be hosting copyrighted material. While the bill’s cosponsors continuously say that the bill would only be applied to foreign websites, the language of the bill is vague enough to allow for widespread censorship under future administrations.
However, even though I am opposed to SOPA and any other bill that limits free speech online, I also oppose the blackout that Wikipedia is imposing upon itself on Wednesday to protest the bill.
How can I be so two-sided?
Well, I have an AP US History midterm on Thursday, and I have no idea where my textbook is.
I’ve looked everywhere for the thing: under my bed, in my desk drawers and even in every bookshelf in my house. It is nowhere to be found. I don’t even know what the name of the book is, although I am pretty sure it has the word “American” in the title.
This is probably because I haven’t used the textbook all semester, and haven’t had to touch a history textbook since freshman year. It’s all thanks to Wikipedia.
When I am studying for an exam and need to get some additional facts about a battle, I could do two things. I could either find my textbook, open the index, search for the right term, flip to the correct pages and hope that the author included everything I need, or I could just open up Wikipedia and type in “Battle of Gettysburg.”
Without Wikipedia, I, along with many of my fellow students, will not be able to study for our midterms as efficiently as I could, and my grades could suffer.
In the days since Wikipedia announced its plans, I have witnessed panic amongst the student body. Some students have resigned themselves to failure. Some have started taking screenshots of the pages they need. One of my friends even tried to download Wikipedia in its entirety (this is possible, and the file is just over 30 gigabytes).
So what does Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, have to say about all this student stress?
“Do your homework early,” Wales said in a statement to the press.
Something tells me that statement won’t resonate with the culture of cramming at Staples.
I understand that Wikipedia is fearful of the impact of this legislation, and I think there is some honor in their protest, but it really isn’t necessary. From the beginning, SOPA has had a very low chance of even seeing a vote on the floor of Congress, let alone passing. Representative Paul Ryan, a major Republican leader in the House of Representatives, has come out against it. Many other high-profile political leaders have expressed concerns. After a public outcry, sponsors of the bill plan on taking out the legislation’s most controversial provisions, making it much less threatening. Even if it does pass, the Obama administration has all but promised to veto it.
Wikipedia is freaking out over nothing. Congressmen are always introducing crazy laws that have no chance of passing. Our Senator, Joe Lieberman, tried to pass a bill giving the President a “kill switch” on the Internet. Ron Paul tried to pass a bill banning courts from taking cases about abortion. Ever year someone tries to ban flag burning. There was even a bill brought up in Congress to establish National Train Day as a federally recognized holiday.
Our legislative system is designed to be chaotic so that these crazy bills never have a chance of passing. Through the convoluted process of committees and cloture, the insane side of American politics is supressed.
If every company in America freaked out over these types of bills, our country would collapse. Companies don’t stop providing their services as a protest because there are better ways of making a point without hurting consumers that have nothing to do with the passage of the legislation.
If Congress introduced a bill banning tomatoes, Subway would not stop using tomatoes for a day. They would make the best sandwich with tomatoes that they could make and remind Americans how delicious tomatoes are.
So, I’m asking the staff at Wikipedia to calm down and slowly back away from their servers. We wouldn’t want to see anyone’s GPA get hurt.
Click here to read an alternative viewpoint.
Based God • Jan 19, 2012 at 1:55 am
“If every company in America freaked out over these types of bills, our country would collapse.”
-Isn’t that the point of the protest?
Tim • Jan 18, 2012 at 11:28 pm
I’ve got a technical screening interview scheduled tomorrow, and need to refresh my knowledge on a few subjects. While there are other sources on the internet Wikipedia is the only one I can be sure will present the info in a concise and useful way. I can’t afford to mess up this interview, and Wikipedia’s heavy handed attempt to force me to contact my representative makes me incredibly angry.
I absolutely oppose SOPA/PIPA. However any protest needs to have some limits. Too many people depend on Wikipedia for important things in their lives and it’s not right for them to make it so un-obvious how to get to their content. It’s already frustrating and depressing to be trying to get a job, it’s terrible to also have to deal with misguided activists interfering with that process.
Staples Student • Jan 18, 2012 at 9:15 pm
I respectfully disagree with this viewpoint.
First off, Wikipedia isn’t accessible – if you press escape as soon as a page loads, it’s there, so no one has the excuse of not being able to use it.
That aside, even though you make the point that, “crazy bills,” make it to Congress every year and that these two likely would have been shot down anyway, I find the significance in this not to be of the direct effect but in the implicit effect.
As we saw with Arab Spring last year, social media is being used as a common ground for people to unite for what they stand for. A famous quote says, “people should not be afraid of the government, the government should be afraid of the people.” Ruthless dictatorships like that that was in Libya fell to the hands of the people, who used to be afraid of the government.
Once again, although this bill wouldn’t have passed anyway, the fact that the American people made it known that they would not stand for something and that we were able to rally around, ironically, corporations (albeit rather public ones), should send a powerful message to the government and the public that the people still do have the power, and I think this may foreshadow events in the future.
Anonymous • Jan 18, 2012 at 2:51 pm
“Wikipedia is freaking out over nothing. Congressmen are always introducing crazy laws that have no chance of passing.” — All analysis had these laws as “all but certain” to pass this year. While it is true the internet has slowed it down since then, PIPA still had 40 co sponsers in the senate, and was close to getting enough votes to bypass the fillibuster. SOPA in the house looked good for passinguntil the Obama administration went against it.The only reason it is viewed as that, and the Obama administration spoke out, is actions like this over the past few months.
This isn’t a crazy couple bills that someone proposed on a whim, it is a very well financed and well lobbied group of bills. To the point where even if these two bills die, it surely won’t be the end of this and they will get re branded (probably after the election.) Some very wealthy industries want this power over the internet, and each of these bills must therefore be taken seriously, and the TV media which had until now ignored these bills because their bosses want to see it pass are finally bringing them up because of what Wikipedia is doing.