Yesterday we featured an infographic on SOPA, that explained how it would impact internet companies. GoDaddy.com the domain registry and hosting service was one of the few prominent internet companies that supported SOPA.
Twitter, Facebook were rife with the news that the only big internet company supporting SOPA seems to be GoDaddy and people were boycotting it. In an act of online activism, users started to move their domains from GoDaddy to other services.
The Fall out against GoDaddy
Upto 21,000 domains were lost by GoDaddy in a single day. Also with a tweet by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales suggesting that they would be moving Wikipedia domain names away from GoDaddy, has given more power to people boycotting GoDaddy.
It seems that GoDaddy’s pro-SOPA stand would not just earn it criticism but also business as if people stopped using GoDaddy to register domains, it could be a huge issue.
GoDaddy Now Goes Anti-SOPA
The CEO of GoDaddy probably realized the issue was now snowballing out of proportion and decided to change GoDaddy’s position on SOPA. The reversal in their position has also been criticized and it seems GoDaddy is moving towards a complete PR disaster.
Online Activism against SOPA
The soap opera of SOPA seems to be panning out over the new few weeks or months, depending on the outcome. Online activism is at it’s highest against the Bill at the moment. Many experts are suggesting that SOPA will be used to bring censorship to the internet. Such activism has ensured that critically important laws like SOPA do address the concerns of the internet community.
It has also led to online tools like ByeDaddy that allow people to check if domain names are registered with GoDaddy.
I am not from the US, nor understand laws like an expert, so I would not like to take a stand on SOPA. But I think even if something is perceived as online censorship; it needs to be discussed and debated a great deal. I do think there is probably something wrong with SOPA if so many internet companies are opposing it across the board. What are your views?
Do drop in your comments.
3 Comments
Strongly against SOPA, its just like removing freedom from the internet and it will just hamper the innovations that are taking place on the web…..
Crumbling Freedom of anything it may be your freedom to speech, freedom to express, freedom to travel, freedom to work, freedom to anything if tried to restricted should be viewed with the lens of Kabir Das Ji:-
“Nindak Neare Rakhiye Angan Kuti Chhaway
Bin Pani Sabun Bina Nirmal Kare Subhay”
I translate the meaning of above said Hindi Proverb in English for English readers:-
“Keep Critic Close To You / Be Always In Touch With Him, It Will Decorate / Improve / Guide / Comfort Your Life
It Will Clean Your Defective Mind / Character Without Much Efforts.
But Most Important Is Taking Criticism, You Have To Take Calmly, Understand It, Think Over It With Open Mind, Throw Unwanted One And Grasp / Apply Useful One.”
If there is no criticism democracy will fall apart and autocracy will come up. So attack on Freedom of anything is Attack on Democracy.
No Hard feelings….
It’s scary to see that this is actually being cideonsred by the government over there.. Hopefully there will be enough fuzz around the interwebs for this thought of internet censorship to drop dead. Thanks for being part of that fuzz!