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As Wikipedia, other sites remain dark, SOPA tweets ‘flow’

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As Wikipedia makes its statement about SOPA, Twitter is beating the bongos.

Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder, showed his political and poetic sides with a tweet Wednesday morning: ‘The tweets must flow, #SOPA must go -- let Congress know!’ The tweet links to the Make the Call / Stop the Wall website, which in turn connects users with their senators.

‘Keep the Internet free’; ‘Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!’; On-Line piracy MUST be stopped’ are among the common refrains from those opposed to SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

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PHOTOS: Sites on strike

Over at Open Culture, Dan Colman writes that -- instead of going dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and related legislation making its way through Congress -- the site would ‘handle things in our own way -- by illuminating the matter with a little intelligent media.’

The site maintains that the legislation ‘would carry with it a series of unexpected consequences that could change the Internet as we know it,’ including shutting down U.S. sites that ‘unwittingly host or link to illegal content — and without giving the sites due process, a real day in court.’

But does the public understand what’s at issue?

From tweeter Jim Sterling: ‘How ironic that people are complaining about the blackout of an encyclopedia without educating themselves on why’ ‘If you’re a blogger. a tumblr. a tweeter. a fan of original online content. Then EDUCATE YOURSELF ON #SOPA today’ (casslavalle).

Mashable took to the streets of New York to interview regular folks about SOPA.

Some were baffled (‘ ‘Sopa’ in Portuguese is soup,’ said one woman). Of the few who had a clue, they indicated support for opposition to the online anti-piracy legislation.

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ALSO:

SOPA: Some of the details

How to get around the Wikipedia blackout

Looks like we’ll all get some work done Wednesday

-- Amy Hubbard



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