I had strongly considered taking this site offline1 for tomorrow’s online protests, but my good friend Michael Schechter directed me to a spot on tweet from another one of my Persons of Internet — perhaps the first one I’d considered a Person of Internet — Merlin Mann:
So rather than going dark for the day, I’m going to offer up a post that I think would better represent why SOPA (which is now apparently dead) and PIPA (which is not) will essentially destroy the Internet. While I won’t reveal all now, I will say that it does come on the heels of my one year anniversary of running Vardy.me as my weblog.
So there’s that.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea to go dark tomorrow to show how you feel about these bills. I clearly also don’t think it’s the best idea. I do, however, think that you should do something.
If you’re an American, tell your leaders how you feel about these proposals. You can do all that — and more — at Stop American Censorship.org.
SOPA and PIPA aren’t good for America, and they certainly aren’t good for the Internet. Make sure you let those in power know that.
I’ll be here tomorrow.
1That said, I did take ProductiVardy and Eventualism offline, and used HelloBar to place my thoughts on the matter both here and at my webiste, MikeVardy.com.
Photo credit: Dustin Phillips (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
