The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that the creators of some of the web’s biggest sites argue could dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies — and reshape the web as we know it.”When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”

“This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position,” Erickson explained. “The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.” – FoxNews.com

This kind of move would essentially shut down the internet, and if it were to actually happen, would seriously disrupt everything from people’s everyday lives the global economy as a whole. The put it lightly, it would be very bad…

Why all the protest for a bill that would seemingly put a stop to torrent sites and other file sharing networks that distribute “stolen” movies, music, games, and software? Why would a site like Amazon be opposed to it? After all, they would seem to directly benefit from putting a stop to pirated music and movies since they have recently increased their presence in the MP3 market and also as a streaming movie service.

In fact, piracy may not even be an issue when it comes to the entertainment industry and their profits. The swiss government has recently conducted studies which shows that ultimately the money consumers save via piracy is spent later on other entertainment expenses. It all equals out in the end. Read more about how Online Piracy Doesn’t Affect Entertainment Industry.

While SOPA would seem to be a good thing on the surface, it has greater implications when it comes to internet censorship and the very freedom that has made the internet thrive. If our government starts censoring websites, it will be the beginning of a major paradigm shift in how the internet will function.

What if they decide to use the momentum of the SOPA act to extend it to shutting down websites in which they subjectively deem to be “terrorist oriented” or a threat to national security? Imagine the Patriot Act making it’s way to the internet and how seriously that would thwart it’s growth.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill. “While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don’t believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site earlier this month.  - FoxNews.com

It may seem like a stretch at the moment to compare it to a communist regime such as China, but if it were to pass, it would inevitably put us on a similar path. It’s the subjectivity of it all which concerns me. Which websites will be deemed illegal and who gets to decide that?

Hopefully it won’t have to come to these major websites blacking out the internet, but if it does happen, it will be unprecedented and will send a pretty loud message to the government.