For Chris Bailey, what normally takes a few minutes took a few loopholes and a little longer Wednesday.
Bailey, a junior studying computer science at the University, discovered the ongoing online protests Wednesday after seeing posts related to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act in his Facebook News Feed. While Bailey typically references Wikipedia for quick online sources, he was unable to do so due to the protests.
“I use Wikipedia and Google all the time to get references,” Bailey said. “You can find almost anything in under five minutes on those sites.”
While some students may have found alternative sources for the day, Bailey found a way around it by logging onto Wikipedia’s mobile site.
“All my friends were freaking out,” Bailey said. “I told them all you have to do is type in an extra character to get to the mobile site.”
Wikipedia was one of a few sites that protested SOPA and PIPA Wednesday by blacking out the English version of its website, according to Wikipedia and an article in The New York Times on Wednesday.
SOPA aims to prevent the “streaming of copyrighted works in violation of criminal law,” according to House Bill 3261. Similarly, PIPA aims to prevent “real online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property,” according to Senate Bill 968.
While students at the University are taking note of the online protests, some faculty are keeping an eye on the digital uproar as well. Victoria Ekstrand, an associate professor teaching media law and ethics this semester, is following the news about SOPA and PIPA.
Figuring out some sort of legislation regarding Internet regulation and preventing piracy is hard to do, Ekstrand said.
“It’s very difficult to draw lines around the Internet and decide what is acceptable and not acceptable,” Ekstrand said. “Where exactly do we draw the line?”
Bills like SOPA and PIPA would criminalize behavior related to piracy, allowing the government to go in and shut down a site’s domain without any “due process,” Ekstrand said. Due process refers to typical treatment through the judicial process, such as a court order or a subpoena.
Internet regulation laws have struggled for two decades now in trying to adopt “old laws for a new medium,” Ekstrand said. Such legislation may likely censor more than it would protect, she said.
“The overall intent of the bills were good,” Ekstrand said. “But they brought in a bulldozer for something they only needed shovels to do.”
Ekstrand believes citizens like Bailey, who agree with or participate in online protests are “crafting their own law,” she said.
Although Bailey tries “to stay out of politics,” he agrees with the idea of protesting the bills.
“Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We’re not done yet),” Bailey read from the top of a Wikipedia page.
“It’s a great idea for the government to have something like this, but it would just put way too many restrictions on everything,” he said.
