VIDEO GAME CENSORSHIP:
I believe video games deserve the same First Amendment protection as other forms of entertainment. Stand with me and the Video Game Voters Network on 11/2 as the Supreme Court Decides the future of games. Go to http://vgvn.org/act to sign the petition to stop video game censorship.
INTERNET CENSORSHIP:
URGENT NEWS: The Senate is considering a bill that would create an online blacklist of Internet sites Americans would be prohibited from visiting. Hollywood has been stumping hard for this bill and unless we speak up, it could sail through Congress right after the election. Go here to sign this petition:
http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/?source=tw
Both of these need to be stopped, it's fast and online to sign both petitions, stop the government from telling us what we can or can't create in games, and what we can or can't look at, or read, on the internet.
Two things you want to sign if you live in the USA
Regarding internet censorship, call your Senator and tell them not to support it. Go to senate.gov to find the Senators from your state, then go to their websites to find local phone numbers (and maybe save yourself the long distance charges).
I called Diane Feinstein's local office about this last month.
I called Diane Feinstein's local office about this last month.
Honestly. You better get this voted right or you won't be able to talk about sensorship in communist countries anymore...
Author
Quote:Original post by owl
Honestly. You better get this voted right or you won't be able to talk about sensorship in communist countries anymore...
--- **Censorship,yes I realize that, thank you.
Quote:Original post by LessBread
Regarding internet censorship, call your Senator and tell them not to support it.
Bingo. Signing internet petitions is useless: Politicians have no way to verify whether any of the signatories are actually their constituents, let alone whether they actually exist, or under what circumstances the signatures were gathered. And it's worse than useless, because people may do it instead of actually doing something with the potential for actual effect, like contacting their senator directly. So yeah, these are important issues, and it's important for people to do something about them. Just don't bother with the petition crap.
Find your senators here (they are both answerable to you). Find your representative here (only one from your state is actually "yours"). It'll take you ten minutes, and it's the most leverage you'll ever have with the federal government. This stuff actually does make a difference.
Poking around a bit with google, I found that the proposal is already being called "The Great Firewall of the USA".
Here's how the EFF describes the bill: The COICA Internet Censorship and Copyright Bill
Here's EFF's examples of the kinds of sites that would probably be targeted under this law: Sites COICA may take offline, and why
If you don't think this law will be abused, check out this catalog of abusive takedown notices: Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
Don't kid yourself if you think that sites like wikileaks won't be targeted next.
Information about the bill can be found here: S.3804 Bill Summary & Status
You can find your Senators using this list. When you call them refer to S.3804. If your Senators are on the Judiciary Committee, tell them to kill the bill there. Remind them that America should not censor the internet like authoritarian countries such as Saudi Arabia and China.
Here's how the EFF describes the bill: The COICA Internet Censorship and Copyright Bill
Quote:
The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) is an Internet censorship bill which is rapidly making its way through the Senate. Although it is ostensibly focused on copyright infringement, an enormous amount of noninfringing content, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes.
The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. The bill creates a blacklist of censored domains; the Attorney General can ask a court to place any website on the blacklist if infringement is "central" to the purpose of the site.
...
Here's EFF's examples of the kinds of sites that would probably be targeted under this law: Sites COICA may take offline, and why
Quote:
One-click hosting websites such as Dropbox, MediaFire and Rapidshare: these sites allow users to upload anything, and do not police files unless they receive DMCA takedown notices. That's the way the law currently works, and although it causes problems, it at least strikes a balance between copyright enforcement and freedom for sites to innovate. Under COICA, the Department of Justice (DOJ) could decide that there is "too much" piracy on any of these sites and it is therefore "central" to their businesses.
MP3 blogs and mashup/remix music sites like SoundCloud, MashupTown and Hype Machine: the RIAA has a long history of litigating against unauthorized sampling and musical quotation in all of its forms; while these uses should be protected by the fair use doctrine, the DOJ might come to another conclusion, especially under pressure from the RIAA, and just take MP3 blogs and remix music sites offline whenever the recording industry complained about them.
Sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy, like pirate-party.us, p2pnet, InfoAnarchy, Slyck and ZeroPaid: while these sites contain a great deal of news and political speech, they also regularly link to tools and information intended for file sharing, and the DOJ could well decide that infringement is "central" to their purpose and take the entire sites offline. That outcome would be fundamentally contradictory to freedom of speech.
If you don't think this law will be abused, check out this catalog of abusive takedown notices: Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
Don't kid yourself if you think that sites like wikileaks won't be targeted next.
Information about the bill can be found here: S.3804 Bill Summary & Status
You can find your Senators using this list. When you call them refer to S.3804. If your Senators are on the Judiciary Committee, tell them to kill the bill there. Remind them that America should not censor the internet like authoritarian countries such as Saudi Arabia and China.
Quote:Original post by WarPig2010Both of these need to be stopped, it's fast and online to sign both petitions, stop the government from telling us what we can or can't create in games, and what we can or can't look at, or read, on the internet.Or maybe you can post the links without telling us which way to vote? Why assume we all agree with you? You don't even tell us why we should vote the way you want, at least offer a cogent argument to support your case.
Quote:Original post by JDX_JohnThe OP summed it up pretty nicely right there in the sentence you quoted (emphasis mine).Quote:Original post by WarPig2010Both of these need to be stopped, it's fast and online to sign both petitions, stop the government from telling us what we can or can't create in games, and what we can or can't look at, or read, on the internet.Or maybe you can post the links without telling us which way to vote? Why assume we all agree with you? You don't even tell us why we should vote the way you want, at least offer a cogent argument to support your case.
And if you can't see *why* these measures should be voted down, well, then I weep for the future of our glorious country...
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