Many news sites, tech blogs and media companies have openly expressed where they stand in regards to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).
By now, you know what it is, and if you don't you can catch up here. Some sites have chosen to go dark in protest, such as Wikipedia, while others have taken smaller measures with a banner or landing page directing to more information on the subject, such as Google or Facebook. Many news sites are continuing to post articles as they would on any regular day.
As with the two bills themselves, it is not a one-answer situation for tech reporters. The role of any reporter is not to participate in a protest, but be the eyes and ears of the public. It is your right as a U.S. citizen to have an opinion, but it's the responsibility of a journalist to make sure you have as much accurate, non-biased information on a subject before formulating that opinion.
This gets tricky when the issue at hand could, as critics have claimed, have the power to change the future of the web and technology, which many companies would agree is the foundation of their business.
We've round up some of the tech news sites and media companies' articles on today's protest against SOPA/PIPA. How do you think journalists should be responding to the issue? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
"The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet." - Mark Zuckerberg
"Our mandate is to report news and sometimes offer opinion about video games, gaming culture and the way gaming intersects with the culture at large. I believe it is our job to cover protest movements but not to be part of them." - Stephen Totilo
"Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There's no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs." - Google Landing Page
"Beyond damaging free speech and the internet, bills like SOPA and PIPA damage industry by reinforcing an untenable faith in the status quo, and an equally untenable fear of innovation. It reveals a mindset that continues to hold back media companies as they vie to compete on the new platforms that have already transformed their businesses, ready or not.
If that was the only harm in this legislation, we might write it off as another big media business blunder. But this time, it's more than that. Hollywood's right to make bad business decisions stops at the point where it threatens our freedom of speech." - Evan Hansen
"As written, PIPA would import censorship and surveillance techniques pioneered by countries like China and Iran, reversing longstanding U.S. policy on Internet freedom, betraying U.S. First Amendment values, damaging our standing around the world, threatening our job-creating innovators, and undermining Internet security for everyone." - Tumblr Staff Blog
"As journalists, we feel that the best thing we can do is to continue reporting, rather than to go silent. We'll continue informing you ... and not just about political issues that are important enough for us to be talking about them on a video game blog." - JC Fletcher
" It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests." - Senator Chris Dodd
"Whilst this is primarily happening in the US, Internet citizens all over the world will be affected when one of these bills gets passed. Search engines, blogs like this one and the way you communicate via social media or upload videos, songs or photos – all will be dramatically affected and change the way you use the Internet." - Jorg Ruis
"The blacked-out websites successfully created a news event today in all media, old and new. Millions more Americans will have at least a passing knowledge of what Internet companies think the problem with SOPA is." - Alexis Madrigal
"I'm not in favor of SOPA. Blacklisting entire domains is a terrible idea that seems to have been beaten back by reason. Jailing alleged pirates would be Draconian in most cases. Using the U.S. Justice Department to enforce multinational corporations' intellectual property rights through the criminal court system makes me queasy. Placing the burden of proof on small websites to show they aren't violating copyrights is a dangerous turnabout of U.S. law. And perhaps most important, it's highly doubtful that SOPA would be effective in stopping the kind of content theft I'm writing about here.
But if you don't think there's a piracy problem, you're not paying attention." - Bob Sullivan
"Boing Boing is offline today, because the US Senate is considering legislation that would certainly kill us forever. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement." - Home Page
"We think the greater responsibility of The Verge as a news outlet is to serve our readers, so we're still up and running, but I wanted to take this opportunity to publish Vox Media's official SOPA position statement. As many of you know, Vox Media and The Verge are officially opposed to SOPA, and I worked closely with our general counsel Lauren Fisher to articulate the reasons why — although our company invests heavily in producing premium content, we feel SOPA is overbroad, dangerous to the technical operation of the internet, and will ultimately cost us more in compliance costs than it might save by "protecting" our work. It's a bad law, and we think it needs to be stopped." - Nilay Patel
"While the actions vary from site to site -- some are shutting down, some are turning their pages black -- the message is clear: Neither the Senate's Protect IP Act nor the House's Stop Online Piracy Act represents a consensus view on how to address online piracy without undermining the open Internet, and neither should be rushed to a vote." - Andrew McDiarmid
"The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet." - Mark Zuckerberg
"Our mandate is to report news and sometimes offer opinion about video games, gaming culture and the way gaming intersects with the culture at large. I believe it is our job to cover protest movements but not to be part of them." - Stephen Totilo
"Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There's no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs." - Google Landing Page
"Beyond damaging free speech and the internet, bills like SOPA and PIPA damage industry by reinforcing an untenable faith in the status quo, and an equally untenable fear of innovation. It reveals a mindset that continues to hold back media companies as they vie to compete on the new platforms that have already transformed their businesses, ready or not.
If that was the only harm in this legislation, we might write it off as another big media business blunder. But this time, it's more than that. Hollywood's right to make bad business decisions stops at the point where it threatens our freedom of speech." - Evan Hansen
"As written, PIPA would import censorship and surveillance techniques pioneered by countries like China and Iran, reversing longstanding U.S. policy on Internet freedom, betraying U.S. First Amendment values, damaging our standing around the world, threatening our job-creating innovators, and undermining Internet security for everyone." - Tumblr Staff Blog
"As journalists, we feel that the best thing we can do is to continue reporting, rather than to go silent. We'll continue informing you ... and not just about political issues that are important enough for us to be talking about them on a video game blog." - JC Fletcher
" It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests." - Senator Chris Dodd
"Whilst this is primarily happening in the US, Internet citizens all over the world will be affected when one of these bills gets passed. Search engines, blogs like this one and the way you communicate via social media or upload videos, songs or photos – all will be dramatically affected and change the way you use the Internet." - Jorg Ruis
"The blacked-out websites successfully created a news event today in all media, old and new. Millions more Americans will have at least a passing knowledge of what Internet companies think the problem with SOPA is." - Alexis Madrigal
"I'm not in favor of SOPA. Blacklisting entire domains is a terrible idea that seems to have been beaten back by reason. Jailing alleged pirates would be Draconian in most cases. Using the U.S. Justice Department to enforce multinational corporations' intellectual property rights through the criminal court system makes me queasy. Placing the burden of proof on small websites to show they aren't violating copyrights is a dangerous turnabout of U.S. law. And perhaps most important, it's highly doubtful that SOPA would be effective in stopping the kind of content theft I'm writing about here.
But if you don't think there's a piracy problem, you're not paying attention." - Bob Sullivan
"Boing Boing is offline today, because the US Senate is considering legislation that would certainly kill us forever. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement." - Home Page
"We think the greater responsibility of The Verge as a news outlet is to serve our readers, so we're still up and running, but I wanted to take this opportunity to publish Vox Media's official SOPA position statement. As many of you know, Vox Media and The Verge are officially opposed to SOPA, and I worked closely with our general counsel Lauren Fisher to articulate the reasons why — although our company invests heavily in producing premium content, we feel SOPA is overbroad, dangerous to the technical operation of the internet, and will ultimately cost us more in compliance costs than it might save by "protecting" our work. It's a bad law, and we think it needs to be stopped." - Nilay Patel
"While the actions vary from site to site -- some are shutting down, some are turning their pages black -- the message is clear: Neither the Senate's Protect IP Act nor the House's Stop Online Piracy Act represents a consensus view on how to address online piracy without undermining the open Internet, and neither should be rushed to a vote." - Andrew McDiarmid
"I have no issue with Wikipedia going Web native and reminding us all that what we take as a given — a friction-free Internet — can be wiped out in the important, but complicated battle to fight piracy. In this instance, my interests happen to be aligned with Wikipedia's even though I create copyrighted content. I wrote as much, suggesting that the attempts by Congress to fix something they don't know much about will have a number of unintended consequences. I'm happy that some of the legislation's more onerous provisions, including domain blocking, have gone away." - David Carr
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gantico
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