You may have seen the acronym SOPA flying around the last few days. It refers to the Stop Online Piracy Act legislation proposed in the U. S. House of Representatives. Tumblr took action against the bill for one full day by censoring Tumblr accounts and by providing Tumblr users with information about how to write or phone in their protests against the proposed law. Jamie Frevele from The Mary Sue explains what the Tumblr action was all about. She writes,
In the name of protecting “prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation,” there is a bill currently being debated in Congress, the PROTECT-IP Act and its House version, the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA), concerning censorship of the internet that intends to leave legal windows open to prosecute regular users like you, me, and your Aunt Ethel, who just wanted to show you what her cat was doing on YouTube and happened to be playing the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera in the background.
Image Credit: Matthew Oliphant