Friday, January 20, 2012

Fwd: Strike organizers applaud announcement that Senate and House have postponed action on the proposed web censorship bills

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Fight for the Future
Tiffiniy Cheng
Holmes Wilson
press@fightforthefuture.org
(614) 465-6371
(508) 474-5248


January 20, 2012

Fight for the Future, which ran the largest organizing sites for the recent SOPA protests (sopastrike.com and americancensorship.org), applauds the announcement that the Senate and House have postponed action on the proposed web censorship bills.

"We sent the MPAA back to the drawing board," said Fight for the Future Co-founder Holmes Wilson, "But any law that lets the copyright lobby block our websites, censor our search results, or cut off our Paypal accounts--without even going through a judge--will be soundly defeated."

"This was the largest online protest in history," said Fight for the Future Co-founder Tiffiniy Cheng, "The MPAA was trying to quietly force this bill through Congress, but when internet users started paying attention, real democracy happened. This is a watershed moment in the fight against lobbyists' influence on politics."

"The MPAA could have proposed a law to address copyright infringement," said Holmes Wilson, "Instead, they proposed giving rightsholders veto power over online innovation and free expression. At that point, it was just a matter of getting the public involved."

A timeline of the SOPA protests: http://sopastrike.com/timeline
Statistics from the January 18 protest: http://sopastrike.com/numbers
Statistics from the November 16 protest: http://americancensorship.org/infographic2.html

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