There has been a lot of buzz online about the Anti-Piracy Bill Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) which is in the United States senate. If this bill get passed then the whole internet will be censored as most of the big internet companies like Google,Yahoo,Facebook, Twitter are from USA. So its going to seriously effect the freedom of expression on Internet. Most of the major internet companies Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and more have protested against this bill. YOu can learn more about SOPA and how it will affect you here in our earlier post.
Earlier this week, Reddit.com announced that they would be blacking out their site on January 18th 2012. Wikipedia also going to black out on the same day making a protest against the SOPA. Likewise, many of us should take similar action against this bill. The damage it would cause to our internet infrastructure would be irreparable. So webmasters can try some of the below methods to show your participation on protesting against SOPA/PIPA.
WordPress Plugin
The SOPA Blackout for WordPress plugin allows you to easily show your support on SOPA Blackout Day on your blog. Download the plugin from here, upload and activate it on your site. After activating the plugin will present a blackout banner when users visit your site, which can be circumvented by clicking anywhere.
Cloudflare apps
The Stop Censorship app from CloudFlare shows your visitors that you are against SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), the proposed censorship legislation. On their first visit, visitors will get a censored experience. Words on the website longer than five characters will be blacked out and a “Censored” corner badge will appear at the top of the page. To install the app on your CloudFlare powered website go here.
If you are looking out to build your own creative ideas to protest against SOPA/PIPA, then you should read John Mueller, a Googler explains the SEO implication and the right way to make your website outages and blackouts read the original Google+ post.
So are you participating the protest against SOPA. Do comment if you have any other ways to protest against SOPA and also your views on it.