Congress indefinitely shelved the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counter-part the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) because of the internet blackout on January 18 caused. Despite this, some internet users are still fighting a battle over two other pieces of legislation.
Influential websites like Wikipedia are fighting for the United States to remove its signature from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which encourages countries to pass legislation that monitors internet users, according to a January CNet report. Many are also fighting the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) for similar reasons to the SOPA fight.
“People are not against having internet regulations,” Jessica Nasolski, junior and avid political news reader said. “The main problem people have with many of these acts is that they are too vague and give the companies too much power over the content produced on the internet.”
Many opponents of ACTA believe the agreement will limit freedom of speech on the internet, cause many security risks, and will breach internet user’s privacy, according to a January CNN article.
“ACTA encourages governments to make it so internet providers are a buffer between file sharing, and if someone breaches copyright, then your files are not sent, and provider could be required to report the users,” Nasolski said.
Despite the outcry against internet regulations, some internet companies are showing support for the OPEN act, currently being revised in Congress.
“When the internet started its outcry months ago, some senators introduced OPEN which many people think is more understandable,” Nasolski said. “It’s also nice that Congress is actually listening to the internet’s opinions on this bill.”
When OPEN was created, Keepthewebopen.com started to give Congress the public’s opinion on the bill, according to another CNN report. Members of Congress stated they have looked at some of the comments on the site and are taking them into consideration.
Many of the companies that blacked out, including Google, Mozilla, and Tumblr, have shown support of the OPEN bill as an alternative to the SOPA/PIPA, according to CNN.