SOPA and PIPA origins
NCtimes.com
Protest exposes Silicon Valley-Hollywood rivalry
http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/protest-exposes-silicon-valley-hollywood-rivalry/article_13610a97-d6c6-59bc-a5f1-8b119ff037ff.html
The Internet security's acts
A new Internet security bill has been viewed by the three branches of government over the past month. This bill proposes that any small, supposedly "stolen" websites would be taken down. Piracy has somehow a problem on the Internet. The government's plan is to take town or oversee any piracy that happens on the Internet and stop it before it spreads throughout the Internet. Wikipedia being among them, saw this as a crazy, useless act and the law shouldn't influence the Internet. Other social networking/ work related sites such as Google, Yahoo, Deviantart, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more shut down their websites for certain time periods or had members of the sites black out their pages in protest. These websites were also seen as "victims" of the SOPA and PIPA acts.
This connects to what we are learning in class because we are learning about the taxation acts that started in 1776. The Intollerable acts, the Tea act, the Stamp act, and the Quartering act were all created during that time period. Citizens of the colonies had to be taxed by British Loyalists in the area and the profits would be sent to the greedy King George III. Every time a tax was created, the colonist rebelled against the British who fought for the king. Those people were called Loyalists because they were loyal to the king. Patriots, people who wanted to live a free life away from the king, protested saying these acts were random, pointless, and unfair because they didn't live in Europe with the king anymore! These protest led to violence in some areas, especially Boston, led to battles. The Boston Massacre is one of these events. Some other rebellious events were the Boston Tea Party and the Battles of Concord/ Lexington.
The SOPA and PIPA act connect to my life as a citizen because kids like myself are starting to become part of this new digital age. The Internet help us more than we know. We connect with friends, play games, find new information, create and publish new ideas, and make history every day in out lives. If the bills were passed then many kids would be out of luck on using any fun/ helpful Internet sites. A site I use all the time is Deviantart. I post all of my artwork. blog, find new styles, and make new friends there. If it wasn't for that site, my art style and perspective on the different kinds of art would be completely different (in a bad way.)
In my opinion, these acts are ridiculous. The law shouldn't influence the internet. This connects so perfectly with the Intollerable acts and other acts of the 1700's. The people were taxed and they rebelled against the king. Now, the internet is being shut down and the citizens rebell against the government and the president.
