Many in the internet community feel that two bills in the process of becoming law in the United States, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate, would seriously limit free speech rights by internet content producers and viewers. To illustrate their point and to protest the proposed legislation, many internet websites are voluntarily limiting and/or denying access to their websites beginning sometime after Midnight Jan. 17. The proposed blackout is expected to last at least 24 hours. After reading about the protest and the proposed blackout participants, such as Wikipedia, I began to ask myself, what impact will this protest have on me? It is just 24 hours; surely I can function without visiting some of my favorite sites for 24 hours. I am certain that most commercial sites, such as Banking and retailer sites will remain online, but what about access to some of my favorite social media sites and portals?
It seems strange to me to think back to what my daily life was like less than 20 years ago. At that time, my life was completely offline, bills and shopping were done in person and purchases made with cash. Communication with friends and relatives involved traveling for personal, face-to-face visits, phone calls over land lines, or letters or cards that arrived days or weeks later through the mail. In 20 short years all of that has changed, not only are bills and purchases made online, I haven’t ordered checks or paid with cash in years, and all of my family is spread across the world, literally, but we can “talk” each day with internet postings on social media websites, or online voice programs such as Skype. Tomorrow’s planned blackout raises this interesting point, I am certain that we will all survive 24 hours without some of our favorite sites and means of communication, but would we really want to go back to living our lives that way? Is the restriction of free communication over the internet really practical to our modern lifestyles with its emphasis on time and convenience? If the protestors are correct, and these bills do pass, then tomorrow’s blackout may just be a precursor to a return to such an impractical and unconnected lifestyle. If this is true then January 18, 2012 may literally come to be known as “the day the internet died”.