{"id":4491,"date":"2012-01-17T13:55:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T20:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/?p=4491"},"modified":"2012-01-17T13:55:14","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T20:55:14","slug":"thorntonweather-com-news-to-participate-in-internet-blackout-on-january-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/local-news\/thorntonweather-com-news-to-participate-in-internet-blackout-on-january-18\/","title":{"rendered":"ThorntonWeather.com News to participate in Internet ‘blackout’ on January 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Protect
Protect the Internet from censorship - Contact Senators and Congressman and urge them to vote against SOPA \/ PIPA!<\/figcaption><\/figure>Dueling bills backed by President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid and others would lead to Internet censorship at the whim of the entertainment industry, the government and judges.\u00a0 To protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), ThorntonWeather.com’s news section will join thousands of other websites and \u2018go dark\u2019 on January 18.<\/p>\n

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is sponsoring PIPA in the Senate and Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) is carrying SOPA in the House of Representatives.\u00a0 The bills are backed by Hollywood and big media ostensibly as a way to stop online piracy and protect copyrights.\u00a0 They are however bad ideas that could lead to the censorship of websites like ThorntonWeather.com.<\/p>\n

These ineffective and shortsighted bills would place undue burdens on websites and Internet providers.\u00a0 Any company with an intellectual copyright claim could for example force Google to remove links to an accused site, prevent credit card companies from processing payments to the accused site, and much more.\u00a0 This could all be done without any legal proceedings at all.<\/p>\n

ThorntonWeather.com takes great care to respect and honor other\u2019s property in written, audio or visual form and we are proud of our efforts to never take liberty with someone else\u2019s hard work.\u00a0 However, under SOPA \/ PIPA, our site could be brought down simply if someone posted a comment that contained copyrighted text or linked to a site that hosted copyrighted material.<\/p>\n

This simply is unacceptable.\u00a0 ThorntonWeather.com will be joining other sites like Wikipedia, Tucows, and Reddit in the blackout to take place tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Please watch the video below for more information and contact your Senators and Congressman and urge them to vote against SOPA \/ PIPA.\u00a0 You can also learn more about the dangers of SOPA \/ PIPA\u00a0via this infographic<\/a> and at the links below the video.<\/p>\n