Great update here from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), of the outcome from government attempts to censor the internet in Taiwan in a similar manner to what was proposed in the U.S. with SOPA/PIPA. Just goes to show that we can stop these authoritarians if we stand up for ourselves. From the EFF:
Taiwan’s intellectual property office proposed a new Internet blacklist law that would have targeted websites for their alleged use in copyright infringement. The initiative would have forced Internet Service Providers to block a list of domains or IP addresses connected to websites and services found to enable “illegal” file sharing. In the face of massive online opposition and a planned Internet blackout, the IP office has now backed down and abandoned support for the law.
Taiwanese users were going to stage an Internet black out on Tuesday June 4th. Several websites, including Wikipedia Taiwan and Mozilla Taiwan pledged to go dark in order to raise awareness. At the time this was written, more than 45,000 people had shown their commitment to protest the bill.
The proposed amendment to Taiwanese copyright law eerily mirrored SOPA and PIPA in its vague language. Any content sharing platform—including sites like YouTube, Dropbox, or Reddit—could have been blocked entirely in Taiwan if authorities found that they were used to share copyrighted works illegally. This kind of overreaching enforcement could easily lead to mass censorship of online content.
It’s clear that the government intends to introduce another copyright enforcement initiative in the future. Still, it’s enormously encouraging to see how users in Taiwan have organized to defend their rights and successfully stopped this draconian blacklist law.
Great work to everyone in Taiwan, keep it up!
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Follow me on Twitter!
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
That’s what happens when you have an educated population, as opposed to a re-educated one.