Top search engine and huge technology company Google is planning to protest against SOPA — the Stop Online Piracy Act on Wednesday, January 18, 2012. Other popular online names will join in, including Wikipedia, Amazon, Reddit and more technology companies in response to the anti-piracy bills that are being discussed by Congress.
Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith stated, “Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page.”
The outrage over SOPA reached a crescendo as long ago as before Christmas. Google representatives oppose this proposed bill as well as the PIPA — Protect IP Act — because they promote and encourage censorship of the Internet, which was meant to allow individuals and companies to not only freely express themselves but to freely share information as well. The issue will be highlighted on Google’s website and on the others that are taking part in the protest in the form of a protest link that will share information about the situation. Some websites, however, like Wikipedia, are planning to go blank for a full 24 hours in protest of proposed SOPA bill.
Senate leaders are currently in debate over both SOPA and PIPA, with a few requesting that the votes be delayed. As of Saturday, it was decided that the vote on SOPA would be delayed and that President Obama would not support certain aspects of both bills.
Due to the fact that Google is protesting SOPA, there is a misconception that the company is a piracy leader, which the company has completely denied. However, with the blackouts of certain websites that are opposed to the proposed bill, there will obviously be a great deal of backlash from consumers, who will be frustrated when they want to access certain websites on Wednesday but discover they are blacked out and unusable. Google and its SOPA protesting partners are confident that the anger will be directed in the right direction, rather than at them.
In that respect, Google certainly has the right idea and will accomplish exactly what it wants. Although they will not be blacking out their website like others will, posting a link about the SOPA bill they are opposing is a great way to garner attention to their cause. While there will no doubt be plenty of individuals who will be for the bill because they oppose piracy, there will certainly be plenty more who will side with Google and oppose the bill as they read up and educate themselves on it. Then, there will also be those Internet users who are hardcore social networkers who will simply be outraged when they discover websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn completely blacked out and will therefore direct their consternation at SOPA. As mentioned, this is exactly the reaction Google and the other websites are hoping to garner.
Samantha Leary is an immense sports car enthusiast who just wrote an article about the Zenvo St1 sports car.