Online piracy laws must preserve Web freedom

[Commentary] The Stop Online Piracy Act would force social media platforms to pro-actively monitor and censor users to prevent them from posting words or images that might violate copyright. Website operators who fail to do so could be blacklisted and prosecuted.

The bill and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act, would empower the attorney general to block allegedly infringing websites based anywhere on Earth. The drafters of both bills do not mean to stifle online dissent and activism. Their goal is to protect intellectual property, especially from piracy by websites overseas. The problem is that the bills' legal and technical solutions are very similar to mechanisms that authoritarian regimes use to censor and spy on their citizens. Our organization, Global Voices Online, is an international network for citizen media. We support the protection of intellectual property; many members of our community earn all or part of their living by creating copyrighted work. We worry, though, that the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act will inflict broad unintended damage on digital activists living under repressive regimes as well as restrict speech freedoms at home.