Last Friday, President Barak Obama issued a statement announcing that he would not lend his support for the Stop Online Piracy Act, known as SOPA, citing concerns over First Amendment rights and cyber security risks. Introduced last October in Congress, SOPA would give content providers wide reaching powers to shut down websites distributing copyrighted materials. Garnering support by backers like The Motion Pictures Association of America, Congress hoped to pass the bill. However with Obama’s statement and a 24-hour blackout held tomorrow by major websites like Wikipedia, the current legislation is under threat.
Ryan Singel is the editor of Threat Level – Wired magazine’s privacy and security blog. Alexis Ohanian is co-founder of Reddit.com.
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