BLACKOUT

Tomorrow, predatorhaven will go dark. No news, no information, no resources. Why? Because I'm protesting Internet censorship.

Websites all over the Internet, including sites like YouTube and MoveOn.org, could be made unavailable if big entertainment companies, the Chamber of Commerce, and their lobbyists get their way by ramming Internet censorship legislation (the Stop Online Piracy act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, or PIPA) through the Senate.

That's why tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18, I'm joining Reddit, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Wordpress, TwitPic, Boing Boing, and thousands of other sites and blacking out predatorhaven in protest.  (Click on the above image to enlarge.)

Call your elected officials.

Tell them you are their constituent, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Why?

SOPA and PIPA cripple the free and open internet. They put the onus on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the blocking of entire sites, even if the links are not to infringing material. Small sites will not have the sufficient resources to mount a legal challenge. Without opposition, large media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for small competing foreign sites, even if big media are wrong. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines.

In a post SOPA/PIPA world, Wikipedia --and many other useful informational sites-- cannot survive in a world where politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money in Washington. It represents a framework for future restrictions and suppression. Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is much more destructive than the disease they are trying to fix.

If you'd like to learn even more about SOPA/PIPA, click here.