Why Storify is against SOPA and PIPA, and why we're not blacking out our site
The current internet piracy legislation is a threat to freedom of speech and the future of the web, as Reddit, Wikipedia and many others have noted. We want our users to see Storify as a place to speak out about this topic -- regardless of their views.
- Some of the web's top sites are "going dark" on Jan. 18 to protest two pieces of legislation before the US Congress -- the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
- We completely support those sites and we also oppose the legislation. We believe these would be bad laws for three reasons:1. The legislation would give the federal government powers to enforce harsh censorship on web sites, cutting off the sites' ability to allow links to -- or even discussion of -- certain content. We believe this is a violation of internet users' freedom of speech, and infringes on the First Amendment.2. The execution of this legislation would by extremely difficult, and would threaten innovation by forcing small web sites to focus unreasonable effort and resources on the demands of poorly structured laws.3. The legislation would not effectively address piracy of intellectual property.If these bills should pass, a service such as Storify would be very difficult to maintain.To see an excellent analysis of the legislation, see the post from Reddit -- perhaps the biggest activist site against the bills -- at the link below.
Storify will stay up on Jan. 18 so that we can help users tell stories about important topics like this one. In fact, we are doing what we can to encourage dialogue on our site about this issue. Our SOPA/PIPA page (see photo below) contains dozens of stories devoted to this topic. To have your story featured on this page, all you have to do is build a story that contains social media elements that include the hashtags #SOPA or #PIPA.- It is our mission to allow users to make their voices heard, and to amplify the important statements being made on social media. We encourage our users to speak their minds about this important issue -- whether they agree with our view of the legislation or not.
If you would like to have your voice added to this story -- whether you agree with us or not -- tweet to the hashtag #SOPASTORIES, post on our Facebook page, or better yet, create a story that includes the #SOPA or #PIPA hashtags so that it will appear on our page devoted to those stories.
Here is an excellent Storify story on this topic written by Andrew Lih, director of new media at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Lih's story, "Wikipedia Blackout to protest SOPA (Jan 18, 2012)" is linked to by The New York Times. Details of the blackout, SOPA, PIPA, context of Wikipedia activism, and coping without Wikipedia
Hackers and FoundersGlobal PIPA / SOPA protests are a go. #NoPIPASF Websites all over the globe are going Dark to protest radical copyright legislation. Tech...- Storify team members will be at a Silicon Valley meetup by the San Francisco Civic Center tomorrow (see above) to show our opposition to the legislation. We also look forward to seeing your stories about that meetup and all other aspects of this important issue.Your views on this issue do not have to be in accord with ours. Our opposition to SOPA and PIPA is because they limit free and open discussion. We welcome it.Thank you for making your voices heard on Storify.
