This is slightly complex so please bare with us. American congress is very close to passing two bills which will completely change the way the Internet will be used, (for people in the U.S. at least), they are the PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Basically, if these two bills are approved by Congress massive entertainment corporations and multi-national companies will have the power and authority to censor the Internet and destroy blogs, websites and all social media online who so much as dare link to a pirated version of any intellectual property they might own.

The video above explains the entire sordid proposal a lot clearer than we could ever dream of, but it’s important you watch it if you have even a passing interest in the Internet. It would be easy for us to  conclude that because our ship is anchored off the coast of Britain this isn’t something that directly affects us. But we’d be wrong, because if this bill goes through you can be sure that the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government here in the UK will follow suit. It wasn’t that long ago out of touch politicians were yelling for the blanket ban on Twitter and Facebook following the London Riots in the summer. So you can just imagine what tweaks and add-ons they will be willing to include to a similar bill and if passed, then we truly have entered into an age of censorship and oppression.