Reddit members drafting 'Free Internet Act', but will it be taken seriously?

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,256   +192
Staff member

Members of the Internet community Reddit are in the process of drafting what is tentatively being called the Free Internet Act (or the Internet Freedom Act). The primary goal of FIA is to create a legitimate piece of legislation designed to counteract what SOPA and PIPA wish to do in regards how the net and content on it is regulated.

First proposed by member RoyalWithCheese22 just a couple of days ago, FIA has already seen overwhelming support from those logging in across the globe. In the opening statement, supporters are urged to “aim high” with their goals for FIA as members of the MPAA do when demanding legislation. By doing this, the opposition will be forced to negotiate and some demands on both sides will have to be sacrificed but ultimately it will be a move in the right direction.

Discussions are ongoing and it’s likely to take some time for anything solid and presentable to come to fruition. There are, however, some articles that have (perhaps temporarily) found their way into the bill.

One article suggests making individuals who have posted copyrighted content liable for their own actions instead of service providers, website administrators or hosting companies. Another article governs that federal or state governments shall pass no law to administer any kind of censorship upon the Internet. This is further built upon by stating that individual countries’ laws shall not be applied to the Internet as it is a global, international entity.

It remains to be seen if the Reddit community will be able to produce anything substantial and if so, if it will be taken seriously by lawmakers. One thing is for certain – when Reddit members get behind something they believe in, they go all-in.

Those interested in joining the fight and adding their two cents can start at the FIA Sub-Reddit where several topics of discussion have already been proposed.

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Nice. Hopefully this will get the attention of the companies that opposed SOPA. They may be able to help get this thing off the ground.
 
This is probably worth doing, but it'll all be moot if Europe approves the secretly negotiated ACTA treaty. Then the corporations will be able to unplug any site they want.

There's a petition to the EU Parliament at:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_acta/?aMCMIcb#

Fun to watch the sidebar, where they roll the locations of signers as they come in from all over the world.
 
please don't let the general public know that this was started by someone named RoyalWithCheese22.. noone will take it seriously..
 
Mindwraith said:
please don't let the general public know that this was started by someone named RoyalWithCheese22.. noone will take it seriously..

this is true. and it's a shame how something as trivial as a name can be so off putting to people that they refuse to look at the content. a consequence of an image driven world?
 
This could be groundbreaking as it could be the way future bills get created "by the people" and pushed to Lawmakers to sign. No earmarks, no crap, just the goods.
 
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