This entry will be updated over the course of the day.
As many of you are already aware (and the rest of you will likely be aware by the end of the day), the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act are making their way through the House and Senate, respectively. I won't write at length about these bills and what they do, as many (including several diarists here at Daily Kos) have already done that much better than I ever could.
Popular forum Reddit announced earlier this month that the would be "going dark" in protest Jan. 18 ... and in the interceding time, many other major sites (including several who normally avoid taking political stances) have joined the protest.
This post is not to explain the protest or the bills. Practically any site you visit today is bound to have a rundown of the issues in some form. Instead, this post is intended to catalog the many sites participating in the protest, and the form that participation is taking.
Join me after the jump to take a look:
8:43 PM PT: FINAL UPDATE:
Thank you to everyone who posted, tweeted, recommended, commented, and otherwise shared and enjoyed my little collection here, as well as all of you who tipped me off to sites I otherwise might have missed.
I realize this is only a small sampling of the sites that took part in today's protest, but I could never capture every participating site even if I want to... so I'll have to settle for being representative rather than comprehensive.
I've never made the front page before, and it's a little humbling that the diary entry which finally broke through was not any of my writing, but rather little more than a collection of screenshots. What little writing there is is just a brief intro, written in the middle of the night, rife with typos.
But the very fact that this little "photo" essay got so much attention shows just how important the issues is, and how many people it affects.
Today is a triumph of vigilance, creativity, and determination. It would be foolish to consider the battle won, and it'll take a little time to even see exactly how it has influenced the discourse on the IP enforcement issue. It's also a bit sad to consider "keeping things from getting even worse" a victory, when it has been so long since we have had meaningful POSITIVE change. But there is a lot to be proud of today.
As has been mentioned in may of the user comments and related articles, this is a fight that will never go away. Moneyed interests will always seek to extend their influence by any means at their disposal, and it is our duty as citizens to remain ever-vigilant and sound the call to action whenever the need arises.
And in that regard, I would like to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to Reddit for organizing today's protest, and to the DailyKos community and all the many, many other people, sites, and organizations that have worked hard over the last several months to raise awareness on PIPA, SOPA, and OPEN. This may sound melodramatic, but it's not just your own well-being--or even the the continued survival of your user base and subcultures that you fight for: it's the very fate of the Internet, and the future and direction of human social evolution. The fact that you were able to have a little fun in the process is just the icing on the cake.
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