Reddit, the incredibly popular link-sharing and social media site is protesting the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP draft laws by shutting itself down on January 18th. Reddit has over 2 billion page views and 35 million active users every month, so they don’t take shutting down lightly.

How Is Reddit Taking Action?

“Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, [they] will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action.”

They will also have the live video stream of the House hearing.

Why Reddit Is Doing It

Reddit takes its responsibility as a social gathering and information disseminating site seriously. And, they are acting because the believe “this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it. Blacking out reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community.”

What do you think? Is SOPA a bad idea? Give us your two cents.

And, hop on over to reddit and find out ways to learn more and get involved.

Tags: laws, protect ip, protest, reddit, sopa, stop onlin piracy act

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 8:17 am and is filed under internet, social media, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.