Black bars around the Internet

As you may have noticed, many sites around the web have gone black today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – H.R. 3261) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA – S.968) in the Senate.

We encourage all WCET members and the online higher education community as a whole to educate yourself on these issues, and what they mean for the operations of your online programs, your websites and your own web usage.  Once you have come to your conclusions, make sure your voice is heard.  Share your opinions with your representatives.

Here are some resources to help you learn what SOPA and PIPA mean for you.

• Advice from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• WordPress.com news – as a 4 minute 20 second video that is well worth the short amount of time it takes to watch it.
• Google’s Take Action Page – has a fantastic infographic
• Want to Boycott SOPA supporters? There’s an App for that.
• Gizmodo explains, What is SOPA?
• Cnet looks at How SOPA would affect you – FAQ
• Lifehacker – All about PIPA and SOPA, the Bills that ant to censor your internet.
• Marketing guru Seth Godin weighs in with Learning Leadership from Congress.