SOPA/PIPA Would Directly Affect...
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
What about... (Score:5, Insightful)
SLASHDOT?
What the hell guys? Do we not care about these bills to even change the color scheme?
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i haven't been reading slashdot consistently forever, but i've never known the site at large to get behind a cause
around here, editorializing is for timothy's article summaries, only BOOM
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Except for OMG ponies pink.
You Wanna Change the Colors? Oh BOY!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Change the Colors, yeah man, that'll show 'em!!
See, I was just gonna wear a mauve ribbon on my lapel to show my support, like I do with all my other colored ribbons for breast cancer, gay rights, animal rights, missing soldiers, missing children, aborted children, aborted animals, and gays with breast cancer, but, YOU! you have a much better idea: change the color of a website! Brilliant!
Fight The Power! No Justice No Peace! The Revolution Begins Here! (And it's a lovely shade of teal!)
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Damn! Slashdot put a black stripe across their logo. We have to reevaluate our position on SOPA & PIPA.
Dear Congress,
This is to inform you that we no longer want our SPOA and PIPA legislation passed. Please withdraw it. Slashdot put a black stripe across their logo, thereby thwarting our plans.
Signed,
Christopher Dodd
President
MPAA
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Re:What about... (Score:5, Insightful)
[..] oh and the Matrix movies.
You mean the Matrix movie. Too bad there never were any sequels made.
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As soon as the Matrix nerds stop going on about Jar Jar, I'll forget about the sequels.
Computer Vampires!
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Re:What about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Matrix nerds like Jar-Jar?
Are you sure that this isn't another one of those cases of it being two different groups of people, who happen to frequent the same forum? I liked The Matrix (too bad there weren't any sequels), but all the Star Wars prequels were crap IMO, and even the originals weren't exactly masterpieces; the effects and scenery were great, but the acting and dialog was a little on the campy and corny side, but it was forgivable because nearly everything in the 70s was campy, the level of campiness wasn't that bad, and the dialog was OK (thanks to Lucas's wife (now ex-wife, that bastard) who edited his dialog and made it presentable). The prequels took it all to new lows that exceeded the threshold of bad acting and bad dialog by far, so that no amount of great FX could redeem them.
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Exactly my point.
Many fans of the Matrix will paint the Star Wars prequels as "crap", but shrug off the terrible Matrix sequels with comments like "too bad there weren't any sequels".
Criticizing Star Wars for "bad acting and bad dialog" while being an avowed fan of the stilted dialog and wooden acting of the Matrix is bold.
Christen Hayden could take a class on wooden acting from Keanu Reeves.
Re:What about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Many fans of the Matrix will paint the Star Wars prequels as "crap", but shrug off the terrible Matrix sequels with comments like "too bad there weren't any sequels".
Huh? I don't see any inconsistency here. They shrug off the terrible Matrix sequels, and they also shrug off the terrible Star Wars prequels. What's the problem?
Criticizing Star Wars for "bad acting and bad dialog" while being an avowed fan of the stilted dialog and wooden acting of the Matrix is bold.
I never said The Matrix had wonderful acting and dialog, just that I thought it was a good movie overall. Not every movie can be a masterpiece of screenwriting, dialog, and acting. And those that are frequently have lackluster visuals, or very limited subject matter (i.e., it's pretty hard to tell a visual story about interstellar travel or fantastical creatures without good special effects, but it's easy to tell a visual story about some people having a family drama in present times without any special effects at all). So, my contention is that The Matrix and SW Episodes 4-6 are above the bar for "crap" overall, despite some lackluster acting and dialog, and quite enjoyable, while the others were far below that bar, because the combination of acting, dialog, and plot was so bad that it far overshadowed the films' good qualities.
Keanu's not the best actor, but I thought his wooden acting actually worked OK in Matrix, for that role and character and setting. Hayden I don't really know about, because I've only seen him in Episode 5, and he was terrible in that; however, from everything I've read about Lucas's direction on those movies, the fault should really be with Lucas, and not any of the actors. It doesn't matter how great an actor is if the director is horrible; even Marlon Brando probably would look terrible in a modern Lucas-directed movie if you could resurrect him.
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Unfortunately, while he's a good actor, Nick Cage has a horrible history in picking movies to star in. I'm not sure what his problem is, but he just hasn't done a very good job at that, and keeps starring in crap movies.
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similar to what i replied to xtracto, you're talking about users talking about things they themselves believed in, in relation to the news articles of the day. slashdot as a website, business, and editorial platform doesn't seem to take stands on topics or causes.
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did they do anything to express this, besides linking to echo-chamber articles that (actual) journalists write?
i'm not saying they didn't favor linking that type of news and coverage, of course they did (still mostly do). i'm saying they didn't do anything about it.
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right, that is what the website is. slashcode.com isn't a statement, it's consistency.
yes, i agree, slashdot did (and to a lesser extent, does) have an agenda, which is why we read the "news" here we do.
in the vein of this conversation as the GP phrased it, though, slashdot does not participate in movements at large, a la the GP's question, "What about... SLASHDOT?
What the hell guys? Do we not care about these bills to even change the color scheme?"
the answer to that is, slashdot is not a site that particip
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i think we're talking about two different things.
slashdot mods just posted echo-chamber news articles from different websites, and the users patted each other's backs with long posts and +5 scores to everything that agreed with their outrage
slashdot, as a website or a platform, hasn't done anything (i can think of) participating in any cause, like the event being held today on sites like wikipedia, reddit, etc).
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Slashdot has done one thing better than many other sites, that is the sharing of ideas that are then interpreted and distributed across the web by many other web sites.
This down by challenging and provided alternate interpretation to ideas currently being expressed on the internet. A charnel house for ideas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charnel_house [wikipedia.org] due to the memories of nerds and geeks to resurrect and reinterpret ideas from the past to challenge current thinking.
It is not a social media cause partic
Re:What about... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Are you kidding? This is a golden opportunity to win back some market share from reddit!
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My wife just called and told me that /. was honoring the blackout by not posting any new stories today.
It's really kind of sad that I could spend hours on /. today and not even notice that it was "blacked out"....
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Of course, Facebook itself has decided to completely ignore the issue, as has most of the really major sites (outside of Google's half-assed approach, that is). It's too bad, those sites would b
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Facebook itself is doing nothing. But I'm impressed that many of the least tech-savvy of my friends and family have re-posted my link to Google's petition [google.com]. So, even though FB isn't at all behind it, it's still proving a useful tool to spread the word today to people that may have otherwise remained completely clueless on the issue.
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Censored (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Censored (Score:4, Funny)
This response has been orphaned.
Lets set up a home for orphaned responses
Missing Option: (Score:5, Insightful)
SOPA/PIPA Would Directly Affect... ... the whole internet.
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That is the problem I am having with the poll.
* Technically: Every Website.
* If draconically abused: Near every website.
* If abused as often as DMCA on Youtube: Eh, a noticeable amount. Enough to be annoying, but not broken. At first.
* If used as rampant as ICE domain seizures currently are: None.
* If used as it is claimed by supports: None.
Realistically, SOPA/PIPA won't practically affect me. However, I don't like the trend. I know the hidden infrastructure will be groaning/weakened from this. I know
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That is the problem I am having with the poll.
* Technically: Every Website.
Not every website. Just those that are indexed by search engines. Or registered under DNS. Or accessible over the Internet. So, the sites that I create on my laptop disconnected from the network (should be) safe for now.
This should only affect the web sites that are accessible to more than one person. Or we can just adjust our browsing habits so that we avoid all search engines or pages with external links. Easy!
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that would be option 4 for you then.
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that would be option 4 for you then.
But it goes beyond that. It's probably not going to affect all the sites I'm using, but which sites it will affect is not the point.
The point is that it installs a censorship system on the internet.
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I don't think you can name one site that it won't impact.
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Don't exaggerate. I'm sure certain [riaa.com] reputable [nbc.com] websites [fox.com] would be completely fine.
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SOPA/PIPA Would Directly Affect... ... the whole internet.
No - darknets and peer to peer would be unaffected. Ironically these are mostly used by blatant copyright infringers, the one the bill is designed to stop
Re:Missing Option: (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't currently know what Slashdot's general view is on that, now we've had SOPA perhaps it's changed...
UN? Oh, hell no! (Score:2)
I don't currently know what Slashdot's general view is on that, now we've had SOPA perhaps it's changed...
No, as bad as this is, placing the UN in control of the Internet would be an unmitigated catastrophe. American legislators are at least potentially susceptible to popular outrage within their electorate. With feckless UN bureaucrats calling the shots, it would be a race to see whether they would destroy online freedom faster from incompetence or from corruption.
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Nobody should be controlling the web, stupid!
Re:Missing Option: (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone has to organise the Internet though.
Yes, and politicians are the LAST group that should be trusted with said organization.
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The UN is an unelected body; it has a "Human Rights" council that's been chaired by countries with the worst human rights records on the planet. What on earth makes you think the UN would do a better job of controlling the internet than the USA, as bad as the USA is?
If one group of people has to control the internet, I propose Switzerland. Or maybe Andorra.
But the best solution is to make it so that no one group controls it, because there aren't any governments that can be trusted with this responsibility
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It's not just Iran, it's all the other countries in the UN. We're talking about an organization that put Qaddafi's Libya in charge of the human rights committee. Which country would they put in charge of internet freedom, Saudi Arabia or Yemen? Maybe you don't think Iran could exercise much control in the UN, but the other Arab nations like SA are respected members of the UN. Or how about China, which is on the Security Council? How do you think internet freedom would be in their hands?
The UN is nothin
Re:Missing Option: (Score:4, Interesting)
Having any government control over root.db is bad, IMHO too. I doubt you will find anyone on Slashdot that will argue for a distributed system controlled by multiple governments or a single system controlled by one. The argument has always been between these two. However, I think you will find the posts marked +5 Insightfull/Informative have been ones pointing out the third option, a non-government controlled distributed system.
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So far we've gotten around the issue by mostly avoiding the governing of the I
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> The Internet requires a "United States of the World" to govern it
The Free People of Earth under the leadership of Peter Wiggin, Hegemon.
Where do I sign up to become a colonist?
How to bypass wikipedia's "Blackout" page... (Score:5, Informative)
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So that's why I haven't seen the block at all...
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Or just directly go to any article on the mobile version of the site.
E.g. type http://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot [wikipedia.org] in the URL bar.
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So why did they not bother to blackout the mobile site? Are they assuming the younger mobile crowd already knows and cares about SOPA/PIPA?
Re:How to bypass wikipedia's "Blackout" page... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're lucky these bills haven't passed yet, or you'd be breaking the law by discussing ways to circumvent content blocks. Clicking the stop button is piracy. Mozilla's site ought to be blocked until they remove the stop button and compulsorily enable Javascript in their browser.
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Have you forgotten about the oft-abused DMCA already?
I searched Wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I searched Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I searched Wikipedia (Score:4, Informative)
SOPA [wikipedia.org]
PIPA [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia's protest [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wikipedia? (Score:4, Informative)
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Are you running NoScript? They're using javascript to display the blackout. I missed it too for a good hour.
Yes, it's NoScript. I never think to look at that when something works.
All Of the Sites that I Use (Score:5, Insightful)
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that reminds me of the twilightzone episode where the guy throws a coin on edge, and can read peoples minds, and in doing so, knows that a reliable employee had thought of robbing the bank but never goes through with it. just cause a guy has crime on his mind doesn't make them a real criminal.
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Umm, no.
Actually,any asshole with an axe to grind AND A COURT ORDER will be able to take a site off the internet, assuming the defendant named in the Court Order doesn't contest the action, that the action would be technically feasible, and that the action wouldn't cost too much for the ISP/whatever.
Of course, once the ISP has removed the site, it could be reopened immediately under another
Re:All Of the Sites that I Use (Score:4, Insightful)
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(1) PAYMENT NETWORK PROVIDERS- Except in the case of an effective counter notification pursuant to paragraph (5), a payment network provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after delivery of a notification under paragraph (4), that are designed to prevent, prohibit, or suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States and the Internet site, or portion thereof, that is specified in the notification under paragraph (4). (2) INTERNET ADVERTISING SERVICES- Except in the case of an effective counter notification pursuant to paragraph (5), an Internet advertising service that contracts with the operator of an Internet site, or portion thereof, that is specified in a notification delivered under paragraph (4), to provide advertising to or for such site or portion thereof, or that knowingly serves advertising to or for such site or portion thereof, shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after delivery the notification under paragraph (4), that are designed to--
Paragraph 4 (too long to quote in full) deals with the requirements for such notification, but the words "court" and "order" are conspicuously absent. There is a section later down about actions that are based on court orders, but that is not required. The legalese is a little tricky for me to parse but it seems that court orders are simply a bit more binding looks like it prevents filing a counter-notification)
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in practice dns blocking breaks nearly every ip stack. why? simple anyone who won't got to court (foreigners) are required to have a blacklist on the dns servers in the usa against any foreign entity dns that 'shares links to copyrighted material' so every p2p user downloads peerblock as a blacklist of all american dns servers. which breaks the internet at its very core. so for an example user joe blow downloads a file from a network stream using vnc then sends it via webmail and the echelon scanner detects
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Please quote the relevant text of the Bill.
Far as I can see, until and unless a Court Order is made, American DNS servers aren't required to do anything.
Once the Court Order is made, the following requirements exist for a service provider (note that there are dif
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Request away. Until the Court Order shows up, your request has no legal significance. Any more than anyone else's request does.
SOPA creates "chilling" effect towards legit sites (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, even if they drop the DNS blocking provision, it still provides the power to block funding to sites. This can often effectively have the same result.
A bigger, more subtle problem is that it may create a "chilling" effect towards any site that could even imaginably potentially be hit by SOPA. Why would you risk doing business with someone that could have have their funding sources pulled? I think this is the critical bit for Open Source projects.
Starting to see a pattern here... (Score:5, Funny)
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eh (Score:2)
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Re:eh (Score:5, Insightful)
What portion of SOPA/PIPA authorizes the AG to censor sites simply for reporting on civil rights issues?
That would be the entire thing.
People didn't understand what the big deal was with the DMCA. Now the *AA are taking down youtube videos of kids around their swimming pools, just because they're humming three notes of the latest Lady Gaga.
These kind of laws should have a due process and should go through the judiciary system. But now, those people are above that. Proof: They are buying laws that allow them to punish people / websites without the justice being even notified.
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Haven't read the text of the bill, have you?
AG has to get a Court Order to do anything other than send a notice that he's begun legal action against a site.
AG, futher,has to prove that the site could be prosecuted UNDER EXISTING LAW IF IT WERE A US SITE before he can get the Court Order.
Note that the "prosecuted under existing law" section actually specifies which existin
Re:eh (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, "facilitating the commission" of copyright infringement (which SOPA and PIPA includes in their infringing site definition) is so broad that the many non-tech-savvy judges will be able to be influenced through heavy lobbying by MPAA and the like.
Lastly, H.R. 3261, Title I, 103.d [loc.gov] (in SOPA) does allow plaintiffs to issue court orders to service providers from what I understand.
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Remember in my last post where I mentioned having the text of the bill open in another window?
You guessed it, I have thomas.loc.gov open to the text of the bill.
And until you can quote a section of the bill that allows a plaintiff to issue a Court Order, I'll continue to shout *Bullshit*. Because there's no such section.
And if there were such a section, it would b
Police state (Score:5, Informative)
As a non US citizen I see what's happening there and wow is all I can say. I haven't seen a more power hungry, police state in the making, country since WWII. I don't think your general population has ever been dumber on whats actually happening there. All they want to see is the glitz and glamour. Hell they can't even be bothered to know who's running for office and what they stand for. Watch your news and they always have some fluff piece/you tube video/this star is in trouble with the law again right after they have info about the latest Republican convention. It's like wow we just made them think for 30 seconds so we better dumb this news cast down. Can't have ratings fall.
You guys need to get a grip on reality before it's to late. Ops it already is.
Urban Nightmare
Living the dream...
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2)Extremely poor grammar
3)Stereotypes an entire population based on the actions of a few of it's leaders
4)A spelling mistake (only 1 that I saw, surprisingly)
Yep, it's a troll.
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See? In a perfect world, SOPA/PIPA could be a powerful tool against trollery.
Unfortunately, the trolls are actually calling the shots, so that's not gonna happen. Besides, one man's troll is another man's freedom troll, and it's a poor troll gun that can only shoot one kind of troll.
It made more sense in my head. Sorry.
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I'm not basing that solely on PIPA and SOPA. I'm also looking at the way the US government has repeated passed legislation that has taken away your rights all in the name of "security". You claim to have the great system and freedom but you also let them get away from it. Yes the rest of the world could take a page or two and become "more free" and I would argue a lot of countries are doing just that. The USA seems to be going the other way. Passing legislation that allows the government to toss you in
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Well, I live in the USA as a citizen and I agree with the original poster's assessment. All the comments about news coverage were spot-on. Allowing corporate media consolidation and removing the fairness act killed real news reporting years ago. Moreover, the fact that a bill this misguided, futile and born of pathetic ignorance even got out of committee embarrasses me as an American. It is defacto evidence that our lawmakers are purchased, stupid, or both.
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Not only that, but the US are the most powerful and most visible country in the world, always going on about how good they are and what a fine country it is. They should put their money where their mouth is and go back to being a country for its citizens instead of their corporations.
yes and no... (Score:3)
As much as I despise this latest proof of corruption and stupidity, claiming that the Internet will die is overzealous. It won't - the same powers have an interest in not killing it.
It will change the Internet, and may even turn it into something else than what it is now. But I'm not so sure that doing the same propaganda only in reverse is the right thing to do. What happens if SOPA gets passed and the Internet does not cease to exist? People will not listen to us the next time.
It is horrible, but it isn't the end.
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Re:yes and no... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the internet won't die. It will become a corporate/government-controllled walled garden. Think Compuserve with a bit more content, if you can pay for it, that is. The government/corporations that own the media companies, can't, for the moment, control the messages read on the internet. Truth still lives there, on blog sites like zerohedge.com, theoildrum.com, nakedcapitalism.com and the like. This legislation would change that, and make all websites about as informative and useful as fox's local evening TV news, or Yahoo's front page.
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Oh, I completely agree.
What I disagree with is this "the sky is falling" and "this is the end of the Internet" propaganda. That's just simply not true, people.
SOPA/PIPA Would Directly Affect: (Score:2)
What do you mean "would"?
By causing enough discontent that wikipedia and other sites are down/changed in opposition to it, I think the correct wording is:
"SOPA/PIPA Already Has Directly Affected..."
"End Piracy, Not Liberty" (Score:5, Insightful)
Google posted some rhetoric that says: "End Piracy, Not Liberty" https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Flanding%2Ftakeaction%2F [google.com]
A lot of SOPA critics make similar arguments, but I don't buy it.
How do you stop piracy without Orwellian bullshit like internet censorship, deep packet inspection, etc? The only way to completely eradicate piracy is to install a surveillance state as terrifying as 1984's.
So, given that, how exactly do we end piracy without ending liberty?
Re:"End Piracy, Not Liberty" (Score:4, Insightful)
Remove the reasons that people pirate. The easier it is to obtain a legal version of something, the fewer people will pirate it. The more convenient it is to make use of a legal version of something, the fewer people will pirate it.
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Why end piracy? The war on piracy is lost, just like the war on drugs and terrorism. Live with it and optimize your sales some other way.
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Two problems with that analogy:
1. Violent crime is comparatively easy to detect, track, monitor, and punish justly. It is thus stemmed off quite well already, unlike piracy which is excessively rampant by comparison. Implementing a system that could stem off piracy as well as violent crime would require the deployment of an extensive surveill
Obligatory XKCD reference (Score:2)
zombo.com (Score:2)
SOPA/PIPA already had a major impact: for the first time in 11+ years http://zombo.com/ [zombo.com] has been updated.
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nope but who has the most money to pay the lawyers?
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Well, no.
Actually, you have to go to Court to get anything even started. Make your allegation directly by requesting a Court Order, or ask the AG to do it.
If you choose the latter course, the AG is required to initiate legal action, and to get that Court Order. Part of his requirement is to do "due diligence" to establish that a crime punishable under this statute