The "Stop Online Piracy Act".

[Fedorov]

I know it has been posted on the awesome video thread, but this deserves a thread on its own cause this is quite a big deal.

WTF is SOPA ? aka The American Government trying to ruin the internet - YouTube

 

[aesdana]

Sopa means garbage in Swedish. How fitting.

 

[Fedorov]

I thought Obama was all about left and progress, is he involved in this? if not, who is responsible and how can things like this bypass the presidency?

Sorry, if those questions sound stupid, but I don't know anything about American legislation.

 

[PUTZ]

Once congress has debated/voted an issue, if it passed, it has to cross his desk and get his signature before it's law.

 

[Peter.Steele]

I thought Obama was all about left and progress, is he involved in this? if not, who is responsible and how can things like this bypass the presidency?

Sorry, if those questions sound stupid, but I don't know anything about American legislation.

Well, quite frankly, neither the left nor the right has any particular reason to be against this.

The guys on the right tend to be in favor of business, and businesses whine about lost profits and such, so the pro-business guys want this.

The guys on the left, well ... it's for the children, right? The more ability the government has to control what content you can see, the more protection you have, right? Of course, the ability to control what you see, means that there's controls over what you can generate as well, but hey, that's just a side effect, right?


So, yeah, both sides in the debate have a vested interest in seeing this thing go through.

 

[tofupunk]

Yup, because that's what being a "leftist" is all about, controlling stuff.

At least here in Sweden the leftists(and of course the pirate party) are the only one opposing increased internet control.

 

[Fedorov]

The whole "protect the children thing" always sounded very "righty" to me.

The idea of "left" (at least here in Spain) is more associated with freedom of speech, more personal rights, equality and the benefit of the majority, workers have more rights and laws are aimed at protecting them from corporative abuse, "Progressivism" or "Socialism" may be the exact words to describe a moderate left, not to be mistaken for the extreme left AKA "Communism".

I thought Obama was in that line of thought when he made his campaign for presidency.

 

[aesdana]

Yup, because that's what being a "leftist" is all about, controlling stuff.

At least here in Sweden the leftists(and of course the pirate party) are the only one opposing increased internet control.

The Swedish left can

 

[tofupunk]

The Swedish left can

 

[The Masta]

I wouldn't be surprised to see such a thing being discussed in the EU.

 

[dogbadger]

Don't worry ppl, i've just been invited to an anti-sopa steam group.
We are currently 10 strong, and we'll put a stop to this nonsense.

 

[Peter.Steele]

My point was that the leftists generally oppose internet control, contrary to what peter steele stated.

Perhaps it's different in your country, but around here, the left generally believes that free speech is something that should only be allowed so long as you agree with what they're saying. If you don't agree with it, then it's a whole 'nother matter entirely.

See, for instance, the recent threat of legislative action by a California state senator against Lowes, after they made a business decision to pull their advertising from a TV show.

 

[smokeythebear]

I wish the companies who depend on it not passing would raise more awareness.

 

[NoxNoctum]

SOPA is a disaster but personally I'm even more worried about the NDAA, which has already passed the Senate.

Perhaps it's different in your country, but around here, the left generally believes that free speech is something that should only be allowed so long as you agree with what they're saying. If you don't agree with it, then it's a whole 'nother matter entirely.

See, for instance, the recent threat of legislative action by a California state senator against Lowes, after they made a business decision to pull their advertising from a TV show.

The Left IMO in the USA tends to oppose free speech when it comes to things like "hate speech", right wingers oppose it when it comes to "national security" related issues. They're both wrong. Anyways like you said neither side has a reason to oppose this. They're all bought off anyways, on both sides of the aisle, by the same people.

I thought Obama was all about left and progress, is he involved in this? if not, who is responsible and how can things like this bypass the presidency?

Sorry, if those questions sound stupid, but I don't know anything about American legislation.

Obama has been abandoned by the sane people on the left. He's Bush 2.0, and a neocon like his predecessor. Of course the people obsessed with labels and "their team" still back him.

 

[Dheepan]

Perhaps it's different in your country, but around here, the left generally believes that free speech is something that should only be allowed so long as you agree with what they're saying. If you don't agree with it, then it's a whole 'nother matter entirely.

See, for instance, the recent threat of legislative action by a California state senator against Lowes, after they made a business decision to pull their advertising from a TV show.

Seems like a loaded statement, I would argue that both the right and left in the US have advanced arguments that curtail freedom of speech. The left often with things that seem to enforce a normative ethos of pluralism, IE school prayer, the right with matters of moral principle, IE obscenity laws, or flag burning. Both to me limit free speech. Conceptions of what is free speech are often in direct competition with what we deem morally acceptable behavior, for example the supreme court has repeatedly upheld the right of the Westbero Church to protest the funerals of soldiers. I would argue that most people would find this to be morally reprehensible, and wouldn't want them to be allowed to do what they do, even though they are exercising their free speech rights.

I'm not even sure absolute libertarianism on the matter is even preferable. For example, former FCC regulations required equal time for political candidates as well as balanced coverage, since those restrictions have been removed there has been a growth of partisan slanted media outlets and programming. Although there is even more political information than before and television and radio stations are more free to say what they want, individuals preferences toward sources that are likeminded have meant that instead of encouraging a more vibrant debate there has been increased partisanship. I think this is an example where the value of absolute free speech is on somewhat tenuous grounds, outcomes matter just as much as principle. Even though it would be considered "nanny-state" to tell what people what they put on their stations, the outcome of the opposite may have had a deleterious impact on civil society.

But on the real topic, yeah, **** this, it's absolutely terrible legislation.

 

[NoxNoctum]

^Well said, though I don't think government intervention is the right answer to cure people's political biases. Also, I love how they pushed the vote to Dec. 21st, when most Americans will be too busy spending time with their families to notice.

 

[REZ]

'Business decision.'

Hahaha, Lowe's pulled support for the show based on outrage trumped up by a fake organisation in Florida called 'The Florida Family Association.' They (the FFA), or rather, he (FFA is comprised of one man), were outraged because the show was about Muslims..

Business decision my ***. If making money has become so important that bigotry and discrimination are up for consideration as money generating variables, I guess...

 

[Peter.Steele]

'Business decision.'

Hahaha, Lowe's pulled support for the show based on outrage trumped up by a fake organisation in Florida called 'The Florida Family Association.' They (the FFA), or rather, he (FFA is comprised of one man), were outraged because the show was about Muslims..

Business decision my ***. If making money has become so important that bigotry and discrimination are up for consideration as money generating variables, I guess...

It's a decision about how a corporation - or "business," if you will - chooses to spend their money. How, then is that not a business decision? It's a conscious decision made in an attempt to influence the purchasing habits of a sector of the population. Call it what you like, but it's no less a business decision than when Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Nike, etc., changed their behaviors based on boycotts from Jesse Jackson.

If it's a good decision, then it will be profitable for them. If it was a poor business decision, well, the consumers will punish them. Regardless, the market is pretty much self-correcting. Why does the government need to threaten legislative action?

 

[REZ]

Thanks for the 'profiteering 101' lesson but I'm way beyond that, and sort of sad you feel the need to drop that simplistic view like a frozen turd in here. You, and I think everyone else understands where I was going. Big difference between PUSH and the FFA and if you can't see how blatantly obvious that is I dont know what to say. That was a bad comparison considering the intent of both parties, which makes me think you may not have understood where I was going at all.

There are State and Federal antidiscrimination laws in place for a reason, and if this business made decisions that were intentionally discriminatory in nature, regardless of the fact that 'it makez dem maor profitz', it should definately be looked into. If the language of the laws fail to cover a situation like this, then it should be added to the existing law imo. Lowes openly admits their decision was made based on the anti-muslim rantings of this FFA guy. Is this very far removed from discriminatory hiring? I think not. If you do nothing about it, what is to stop businesses from not only pretending like a whole section of people dont exist but at some point actively working against them because it happens to generate more profit? Hey heeyyy, economic imperialism, government tested and supported (with a blind eye, of course *wink*).

This brings me back to a photo I took in Oakland some years ago..

It's called 'All We Are'
..and it really is all we have become. Average citizens who's lives have been negatively impacted by corporate greed for the last 40 years sit around and defend 'profit by any means necessary'. The single highest grossing entertainment item ever in the history of man is a video game where you kill people as a soldier. People in this country act like these two things are the pinnacle of human existence, and that's really quite sad. Business and the sacrosanct mentality surrounding it is particularly off the hook at the moment as everyone knows, and at the same time the pressures created by a social template whose very engine is individual greed are leading us into a corner. It's bad enough you're forced to spend so much time of your one fleeting existence having to be a profiteer of some form just to make ends meet (since actual work wages havent budged in over 30 years).. I hope we dont all have to become soldiers before its all over. I'll tell you what, if we keep acting like Lowes did and hide behind our profiteering as though it's okay to marginalize people as long as it makes us money, we'll definately be in for a violent future.

 

[Grobut]

Uh, guys, this wasen't a thread to discuss the differences between the left and the right, seems Fed only wondered about that as an aside.

This is about SOPA, an "Anti piracy" bill that will do nothing to stop piracy (pirates will just be swapping IP adresses instead of URL's, that's all that will change), but which will be used to censor the internet, and propogate big corporate monopolies, whilst stunting growth and competition from small startups.

It will cost thousands of jobs, change the internet as we know it, cost us tons of free and legal content on the internet, sites like Youtube could be gone, this is pretty serious stuff, worthy of discussion.