SOPA Across the Web

  1. Explainer articles about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are all over the Web. The Guardian does a nice job of breaking down the main issues in this two-minute video. SOPA, the narrator says, has  ”turned into a culture war over two American touchstones, free speech and the economy.”
     
  2. Consumer technology site Cnet offers answers to FAQs, including how the proposed laws would be carried out, the potential security risks for such a measure and a list of who in Congress supports or opposes the bills. 
  3. Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of Mashable.com, a technology, social media-centric site, has authored a passionate editorial in opposition of the bills in which he acknowledges that “real content piracy remains a persistent and daunting problem for companies and creators who rely on revenues from the content they create to continue making more content and, sometimes, simply to survive.” But he argues that “the language in SOPA is so irrational that I can only assume that the authors and backers wanted nothing more than to fundamentally change the rules of the web: To shut down the open post fields, kill reposting (goodbye, Tumblr), end shared videos (sorry, YouTube), expand the definition of what it means to infringe (sorry, Twitter, no sharing links that aren’t yours).
  4. Attempting to put things into perspective, the folks over at Gawker Media have compiled a short list of what everyday Web users need to know about the bill, including a word of caution about the hype surrounding the bill. ”Techies have been freaking out like SOPA would force U.S. troops to crush one million kittens, instead of just possibly censor some websites.”
  5. A video produced by a group called “Fight for the Future” also attempts to explain what’s at stake in the SOPA and Protect IP Act (PIPA) legislation. The video, created in October 2011, has rocketed across the Web, garnering millions of plays. On Wednesday, the video played more than 860,000 times. 
  6. PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet
  7. To protest the bill, a handful of popular websites have “gone dark” on Wednesday, Jan. 18, meaning they’ve blocked their content. It’s an effort to show web users what they’d be missing should Congress pass the bills. The New York Times summarizes the developments, which the paper dubbed “A Political Coming of Age for the Tech Industry.”
  8. A look at some of the landing pages for the websites that have “gone dark” to protest the SOPA bill. 
  9. Google has also created this graphic and advocacy page with a link urging users to sign a petition in opposition to SOPA and the Protect IP Act (PIPA):
  10. Flickr.com, the popular photo sharing social network, is also inviting users to participate in a creative protest.  They’re “letting members darken their photos — or the photos of others — for a 24-hour period to deprive the web of the rich content that makes it thrive.  Your symbolic act will help draw attention to this issue and let others know about the potential harmful impacts of these bills.”
  11. New York Times media writer David Carr has a great take on Wikipedia’s “genius” blackout. Well worth a read.
  12. Here’s a look at some of the Twitter and Facebook reactions to the bills and associated protests.
  13. Just announced NO votes on #PIPA: Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a former co-sponsor. #SOPA
  14. Mark Zuckerberg breaks his silence: “Facebook opposes #SOPA and #PIPA” theatln.tc/x4iQ6X via @theatlanticwire
  15. Confused? If it’s #SOPA it’s the House, if it’s #PIPA it’s the Senate, if it’s freedom it’s being destroyed.
  16. Imagine if we didn’t have social media to discuss the possible disappearance of social media… Wait. #SOPA #PIPA
  17. Today is #SOPA Shutdown down. And here’s why you should care – t.co/Y5IbjmxY
  18. Why #Wikipediablackout? #SOPA & #PIPA will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. t.co/5XZxICGC
  19. . @AJStream has put together great documentation of everything going on with #SOPA today: t.co/Qi5dC9J2
  20. Awesome: Tumblr auto connecting people by phone via web-autodial to Senators re protesting #SOPA and #PIPA t.co/KggRWq65
  21. This is the #SOPA explainer video to share with your non-techie friends and family: t.co/gErvb0AS
  22. So, if the sponsors of the SOPA and PIPA bills pull their names from them, doesn’t that effectively kill the bills?: http://mashable.com/2012/01/18/pipa-sopa-abandon-bill/
  23. I get the whole SOPA thing but where am I supposed to get my quasi factual information from without Wikipedia?
  24. My tumblr is blacked out by choice of course to oppose against PIPA, SOPA, or whatever else lol. It feels weird to not be able to rant and other things on tumblr but it’s only for one day <3
  25. Solidarity! PressThink is dark for the day: check it out:… pressthink.org/blackout.html (Thanks to webmaster Tim Libert.)
  26. Awe-inspiring crowd at anti-#PIPA protest in front of Senator Schumer and Gillibrand’s offices. #SOPA
  27. The audio is up from this morning’s #SOPA #PIPA debate on NPR’s @OnPointRadio! t.co/nQYTYCfo
  28. Confused by all the talk of SOPA and Protect IP and threats to the internet? Here’s what’s going on: t.co/IzrtW10J
  29. http://t.co/5byAaSkI this is one of the funniest Anti #SOPA protests i’ve seen thus far. Now do it for the Jet ski’s and love lol
  30. Like wikipedia? Then you probably better go check it out today, read up on SOPA, and contact your representatives.
  31. RT @mozilla: SOPA and “The Great Firewall of America:” what it is and how to stop it ow.ly/8y7VM #stopSOPA #SOPAstrike
  32. Finally, some Patch readers may know we’re owned by AOL. While the companies aren’t participating in the blackout, Tekedra N. Mawakana, AOL’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy, issued a statement Wednesday morning. It reads: 
    “As written, we cannot support the bills.  We believe an open Internet is critical for innovation, job creation, and the sustained growth of Internet businesses. We are in the process of working directly with lawmakers to improve the bills.” 

Patch’s Greatest Hits of 2011

  1. Good Lord, that’s a lot of traffic. The author’s controversial comments on the shifting nature of the publishing business went viral, then provoked a few commenters who sharply disagreed with Turow’s criticism. 
  2. This one began with a posting to our Facebook page, where a resident alerted the community to the disappearance of Jassen Strokosch, a well respected local parent. An intense communitywide search followed, and, luckily for everyone involved, he’s back safely. More on that later…
  3. Listening to the police scanner can be equal parts mundane and nauseating. Unless you’re a police officer, firefighter, paramedic or reporter, you’re not really hearing the constant crackle of local emergencies, both large and small. On this hot summer night, the scanner chatter became loud and rushed — typically a sign that something’s up. In this case, it was a murder for hire in which 29-year-old Chervon Alexander was gunned down in a River Forest parking lot.

  4. Days after the Alexander shooting, investigators revealed some stunning details about the case: That Devin Bickham Sr., a former North Chicago police officer, had allegedly paid an accomplice $400 to carry out the hit on his girlfriend, Chervon Alexander, an aspiring law enforcement officer. 
  5. We’d heard some chatter about Strokosch’s safe return. After making a few calls we had the news confirmed, then published the happy ending to this brief, but captivating, local story.  
  6. Intrepid Patch Deb Kadin contributor pursued a tip about a plan by Oak Pk Park officials that would limit gun ownership on the basis that owning a firearm endangers the greater public health. A couple dozen pro-gun commenters weighed in while the story made its way throughout Oak Park and onto firearm-themed message boards across the country. 
  7. Yet another major story that began with observations on social media. In this case, we saw a few incoming Tweets saying Madison Street smelled like smoke. Someone else tweeted they thought Skrine Chops had burned overnight. Sure enough, it did. The cause, though never officially revealed, is believed to be a lightning strike, the likely result of a quickly moving overnight summer storm. (Forest Park Review reports the restaurant is making a comeback, and the owners hope to reopen in spring 2012.)

  8. The headline sort of says it all. Residents were on the lookout for a man who looked like “Owen Wilson without the crooked nose,” accused of trading phony coupons for real discounts at Oak Park stores. And witnesses to the crimes were right: The resemblance is uncanny. 
  9. Day 2 of our coverage in the disappearance was bolstered by social media and articles from local news outlets. 
  10. A 17-year-old Oak Parker was charged with trying to run a coke and pot ring out of a Harrison Street apartment. Recovered at the apartment were a .40-caliber handgun, ammunition and two safes containing 126 grams of marijuana, 29.7 grams of cocaine, $1,000 in cash, a money counting machine and scales, authorities said. 

Some changes

Made some updates to the “Clips” and “Portfolio” page, which I plan to do fairly often.

I’d like to host some multimedia I’ve done right here too, but there’s two problems with that:

1.) WordPress, the company hosting this blog, generally doesn’t allow you to grab certain types of code and slap it into a site on their vast network. They say it’s for security reasons. Fair enough.

2.) Some of my recent work seems to have disappeared from the Web altogether.  It’s not that it’s even that old, but apparently some sites don’t archive as far back as October 2008.

Stay tuned…

Back at it

After a ridiculously long break from this blog, it’s time to get back at it.

For now, I won’t delve into the Chicago Journalism Town Hall, which took place last weekend. All I’ll say is that I learned a little, I learned a lot.

Plenty of good summaries, including audio of the event and a roundup of its coverage can be found at the Town Hall’s Web site.

But right now,  I’m just going to make some much-needed updates to the “resume” and “clips” pages.

Twitter, finally

Finally bought into the hype and set up a Twitter account last month. While I’m not so sure I need to know the updates of what my friends and colleagues are doing every waking second, i.e. Casey is taking a walk and eating lunch, I realize this tool has powerful implications for newsgathering. (like micro-blogging from the campaign trail, or lap-by-lap coverage of the Indianapolis 500)

Interested? Follow me.