Monday 16 February 2009

Internet blackout and s92a of the new copyright law

New Zealand's new Copyright Law presumes 'Guilt Upon Accusation' and will Cut Off Internet Connections without a trial. Join the black out protest against it!

As a blogger the fear of something going wrong with your blog, so that no one can see it, or losing your internet connection, so you can't see anything at all, is somewhat chilling. All that time, all that effort, all that information that you can't access any other way but through the series of tubes; gone. What did we do before Google? Lived in ignorance of the ending of movies we couldn't be bothered to watch to the end, the first name of that person who wrote that book about that thing, and the existence of the Real Hot B*tches (which is not about pron).

I'm not sure if my fellow Hand Mirrovians support the Blackout campaign, so I'm only speaking for myself with this post. I can see the extreme detriments that s92a could have for political blogs in particular, and the Kiwi internet in general. Click on the image above to go to the site, sign the petition, and find out what else you can do to support the campaign to stop s92a. It will be the sites who are frequently critical of the mainstream media who will be worst hit, like The Hand Mirror, not to mention all those poor individuals (or families, or businesses, or organisations, or whoever!) disconnected just on accusation.

1 comment:

Anna said...

Thanks so much for writing about this, Julie - I've been feeling guilty for keeping my head in the sand about it.

You'd think our friends on the right would be up in arms about this intrusion on freedom of speech. What does the right wing side of the blogosphere have to say about it?