We can add Craigslist to the growing roster of popular websites that have come out against the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts. The online community/seedy Wal Mart of classified ads giant emphatically states “SOPA and PIPA are too dangerous to revise” and “must be killed entirely.” Why?
CL initially approaches the subject with purple prose, describing SOPA/PIPA’s potential to destroy the basic structure of the Internet by “recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora’s jar of ‘chilling effects,'” then gets to why the measures could really hit Craigslist.org where it hurts:
For example, Monster Cable considers craigslist a “rogue site” for takedown under PIPA – they want to prevent YOU from selling YOUR unwanted cables so they can increase sales! Many other “rights holders” want to do the same. Boycott anyone? There is an app for that.
Corporations pushing SOPA/PIPA want the ability to block you from reaching any web site they feel might be hurting their profits — without due process of any kind, or review in any court — by literally interrupting all Internet traffic to those sites via DNS at the ISPs and by censoring search engine results. Incredibly, many lawmakers want to give them that right.
Craiglist goes on to call SOPA/PIPA “job-killing, anti-American nonsense.” They nod to the White House opposition to SOPA/PIPA “as drafted” but insist the bills must simply be put out of their misery, not revised.
Craigslist did not indicate any plans to participate in the January 18 blackout to protest SOPA, like Reddit, the Cheezburger family of sites and Boing Boing, just to name a few.
[CL/SOPA, the NLB Creations List of Sites participating in the Jan. 18 Blackout]
