The Best SOPA/PIPA Gags
The SOPA opera continues, but here are my favorite gags protesting gag orders, with some basic explanations for people that have no clue what's going on.
- On Wednesday, Jan. 18, many websites "went dark" or otherwise tinkered with their look to raise awareness of two controversial anti-piracy bills in Congress. A serious issue, but the Internet never takes itself too seriously.
Many major sites had "blackouts" to protest the Stop Online Privacy Act and PROTECT IP Act. Some of these, like Wired's and Google's, were symbolic -- featuring censor bars, but not restricting their content or use. - More images over at Poynter. The website SopaStrike.com had a long list of the many participants in the blackout effort, and offered code for others to join in. (As The Atlantic's roundup pointed out, "Sites noticeably absent from this list: Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Twitter.") Places like BoingBoing and Reddit went the extra mile to protest by blocking content, and with Wikipedia in particular, this had pretty funny results.
- @herpderpedia retweeted many users (mostly college students) who were confused, misinformed, or upset about Wikipedia's blackout -- even though the site had a notice up in advance and a link on the main page explaining the situation...
- Web comic artist Matthew Inman also blacked out his site, explaining with his usual absurdist humor why the legislation should matter to readers...
- Meanwhile, Forest Gibson made a spoof of Don McLean's "American Pie" and posted it to YouTube. Guess what it was called...
- Then there was an obvious sort of joke to be made about our collective reliance on Wikipedia...
