The Internet Defense League is promising to provide code (I’ve signed up but haven’t seen a bit of code yet) to members that they can incorporate in their websites to provide alerts when a threat—legislative or otherwise—to the internet is perceived.
Taking its cue from the “blackout” efforts that helped kill the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), at least temporarily, the Internet Defense League intends to provide a sort of emergency broadcast system for the internet. A project of Tiffiniy Cheng and Holmes Wilson from Fight for the Future and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
Upon recognition of a perceived threat to the freedom of the internet, participating websites will include code to alert readers of the threat and, optionally, a proposed course of action.
In the past, when SOPA and PIPA were under consideration by the US Congress, Fight for the Future distributed code allowing website owners to blackout their own sites and then overlay information for visitors to use to contact their elected representatives.
ARTS & FARCES didn’t participate in that action—we believe the appropriate response to bad speech (including bad legislation) more speech, not a blackout.
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