Tag: blackout

Today popular internet sites have gone black to protest congressional efforts to limit content sharing on the web by granting entertainment corporations sweeping powers to shutter websites and digital social networks and to intimidate startups. The bills have drawn stiff criticism across the political spectrum, from high-profile tech company spokespeople as well as from citizens in enormous numbers, who argue that the two laws-- the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA)-- would create collateral damage to free expression and innovation that go far beyond the need to guard against copyright infringement.

Prominent New York Times columnist Frank Rich this Sunday wrote about Americans' fickle interest in international news. As political and social events unfold everywhere but here, we don't recognize the players and we know almost nothing beyond what we can see happening before our eyes. The protesters are on the bridge! The protesters are still on the bridge! Rich laments the near-blackout of cable news station Al Jazeera English due to U.S. Islamophobia. He's right about all that and right to be mad as hell about it, too. Then he starts talking about the internet.