End of the controversial SOPA bill, from Obama’s mouth

Historical text from HellasProject (2009–2014). It is not current advice or a present-day service.

US President Barack Obama finally cut the Gordian knot of the much-discussed SOPA bill, signalling that his government would not support it. So the internet is spared — for now — from suffocating censorship.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was filed in the House of Representatives by Republican congressman Lamar S. Smith. The bill gave the authorities the ability to take down sites that include copyright-protected material. Even sites that have links to other sites with illegal content would fall under the restrictions. In other words, the authorities could take Google’s search engine offline (!) if it showed results toward pages with pirated content.
“We do not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression and undermines the Internet,” was the White House’s answer. So the controversial SOPA goes on file, at least for now. It is, of course, not at all unlikely that it will return if Republicans and Democrats find common ground at some point. Until then, the internet can live without suffocating censorship.

Source: e-pcmag.gr