The HeliOS Project is now.....

The HeliOS Project is now.....
Same mission, same folks...just a different name

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Friday, January 20, 2012

You Moved Mountains

I want to share with you an email I received from Tiffiniy Cheng (yes, that is the correct spelling).  What you as members of the tech community did to stop SOPA and PIPA was historical....no I mean truly historical as in your grandchildren will read about this in their history books.  So take a minute and celebrate the moment, take your victory lap but always realize they could bring this back at any time.

If you want some glaring insight into how they are going to put these laws in front of the nation the next time, click on the New York Times link below.  Just sayin'...

You guys friggin' rock.

Ken


Hi everyone!

A big hurrah to you!!!!! We’ve won for now -- SOPA and PIPA were dropped by Congress today -- the votes we’ve been scrambling to mobilize against have been cancelled.

The largest online protest in history has fundamentally changed the game.  You were heard.

On January 18th, 13 million of us took the time to tell Congress to protect free speech rights on the internet. Hundreds of millions, maybe a billion, people all around the world saw what we did on Wednesday.  See the amazing numbers here and tell everyone what you did.

This was unprecedented. Your activism may have changed the way people fight for the public interest and basic rights forever.


The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled.  “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”

“'This is altogether a new effect,' Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing 'an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically' in the last four decades, he added."  

Tweet with us, shout on the internet with us, let's celebrate: Round of applause to the 13 million people who stood up  - #PIPA and #SOPA are tabled 4 now. #13millionapplause


 

We're indebted to everyone who helped in the beginning of this movement -- you, and all the sites that went out on a limb to protest in November -- Boing Boing and Mozilla Foundation (and thank you Tumblr, 4chan)! And the grassroots groups -- Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress, CDT, and many more.

#SOPA and #PIPA will likely return in some form.  But when they do, we'll be ready.  Can you make a donation to Fight for the Future, to help us keep this fire going? 
 
Donate

We changed the game this fall, and we're not gonna stop.  $8, $20, every little bit helps. 

13 million strong,
 
Tiffiniy, Holmes, Joshua, Phil, CJ, Donny, Douglas, Nicholas, Dean, David S. and Moore... Fight for the Future!


P.S.  China's internet censorship system reminds us why the fight for democratic principles is so important:


In the New Yorker:  "Fittingly, perhaps, the discussion has unfolded on Weibo, the Twitter-like micro-blogging site that has a team of censors on staff to trim posts with sensitive political content. That is the arrangement that opponents of the bill have suggested would be required of American sites if they are compelled to police their users’ content for copyright violations. On Weibo, joking about SOPA’s similarities to Chinese censorship was sensitive enough that some posts on the subject were almost certainly deleted (though it can be hard to know).
...
After Chinese Web users got over the strangeness of hearing Americans debate the merits of screening the Web for objectionable content, they marvelled at the American response. Commentator Liu Qingyan wrote:

‘We should learn something from the way these American Internet companies protested against SOPA and PIPA. A free and democratic society depends on every one of us caring about politics and fighting for our rights. We will not achieve it by avoiding talk about politics.’"

4 comments:

PV said...

This battle may have been a victory for us, but the war isn't over. The organizations that want SOPA and PIPA to pass, dinosaurs though they may be, are well-funded and persistent enough that if we let our guard down even a little, they can break through and pass the bills. What we need is that every time the bills get close to passing, we need to see these sorts of blackouts and mass protests just to show people how infuriatingly closed the Internet will become if these bills become laws. Eventually, this will happen enough times that the organizations will finally recognize that they're going against the will of every citizen of this country except their own members.
We need to stay vigilant and keeping passing on the message to others to stay vigilant as well.
--
a Linux Mint user since 2009 May 1

Anonymous said...

The same Mr. Dodd, btw., went live on air (Fox) to threaten the senators that now renounced the bill, they shouldn't expect any more campaign funding coming from Hollywood.

tracyanne said...

Unfortnately, Ken, it ain't over until the fat lady sings, and believe me she hasn't even started her warm up exercises yet.

This was but a small skirmish. The bills will be rewritten, pulled apart and passed through in smaller chunks, but unless the American people stay vigilant and actively work to see the corruption that feeds this excised from the US governement, it will, like a hydra, grow another head.

istok said...

"... Mr. Dodd said..."

those poor things really don't understand what the interwebz is or how it works. i know we always say it, but it seems to be official.

@PV they won't do anything massively unpopular in an american election year. but you may expect to see a lot of propaganda in the media, lots of spin. they will look to change the public perception which is right now clearly against this legislation, and when they succeed sufficiently, submit it again. next time they might call the bills DUMB and DUMBER for all we know.