• Jack (unregistered) in reply to Jonathan H.
    Jonathan H.:
    A lot of people aren't taking the time to read it and see all the absolutely absurd "upsides" he talks about.

    Some people need to get their head out of their ass and use their brain. It's an obvious joke. On a HUMOR SITE no less. Dear Lord people, you make me weep for the future of humanity.

    What you have to realize is that most people are stupid. Maybe they aren't necessarily the intended audience of this site, but some of them read it anyway. And maybe losing them as readers isn't necessarily a bad thing. Nevertheless, I can't seem to shake the feeling that their lowered opinion could somehow be at least the tiniest bit damaging in the long run. So that's why I think this post could have done with a little less subtlety.

  • not an american (unregistered)

    The true WTF is the US government. Am I right ?

  • Jack (unregistered) in reply to PiisAWheeL
    PiisAWheeL:
    You have re-explained why and the end goal. My question was HOW (or what will they do, as its worded).

    And that is my point. It can't prevent it. It can't even effectivly stop it.

    You're right. But we can't ever completely prevent murder either. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws that punish or deter it.

    Just to be clear, I do not support SOPA/PIPA as written. But I have no love for pirates, either.

  • geoffrey (unregistered)

    People ignore all sorts of big government initiatives and infringements, but when it comes to curtailing the ability to steal the intellectual property of others, everyone is suddenly an activist.

  • Jonathan H. (unregistered) in reply to Jack
    Jack:
    Jonathan H.:
    A lot of people aren't taking the time to read it and see all the absolutely absurd "upsides" he talks about.

    Some people need to get their head out of their ass and use their brain. It's an obvious joke. On a HUMOR SITE no less. Dear Lord people, you make me weep for the future of humanity.

    What you have to realize is that most people are stupid. Maybe they aren't necessarily the intended audience of this site, but some of them read it anyway. And maybe losing them as readers isn't necessarily a bad thing. Nevertheless, I can't seem to shake the feeling that their lowered opinion could somehow be at least the tiniest bit damaging in the long run. So that's why I think this post could have done with a little less subtlety.

    You might be right on that one. And if I'm going to be completely honest, even I was taken aback by it until I stopped and really read it for what it was. I do hope it's not too damaging though. I would hate to lose this site. It's been the source of much laughter these past years. :D

  • Chris Bailey (unregistered)

    Disappointed in your stance on this.

  • (cs) in reply to Jack
    Jack:
    PiisAWheeL:
    You have re-explained why and the end goal. My question was HOW (or what will they do, as its worded). And that is my point. It can't prevent it. It can't even effectivly stop it.
    You're right. But we can't ever completely prevent murder either. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws that punish or deter it. Just to be clear, I do not support SOPA/PIPA as written. But I have no love for pirates, either.
    True, but nobody is trying to use murder laws to outlaw guns or knives or baseball bats or "anything that can be used to end a human life".
  • (cs) in reply to PiisAWheeL
    PiisAWheeL:
    Zylon:
    PiisAWheeL:
    Nobody likes having their stuff ripped off. So tell me, then, as a creative: I assume you have done some research into SOPA and PIPA, explain to me WHAT exactly they are going to do to prevent you from getting ripped off?
    I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're drunk.
    Lets pretend for a minute i'm sober, would YOU like to answer the question?
    I would answer your question with a question: WhyTF are you asking me? All I was doing was making fun of creative people who refer to themselves as "creatives".

    If you were sober you would have noticed that.

  • (cs) in reply to Chris Bailey
    Chris Bailey:
    Disappointed in your stance on this.
    Why? It's a perfectly modest proposal.
  • Jack (unregistered) in reply to PiisAWheeL
    PiisAWheeL:
    True, but nobody is trying to use murder laws to outlaw guns or knives or baseball bats or "anything that can be used to end a human life".

    I think quite a few people would like to see guns outlawed to prevent murder. But I take your point.

  • (cs) in reply to Chris Bailey
    Chris Bailey:
    Disappointed in your stance on this.
    Are there really this many stupid people who absolutely fail THIS hard at reading comprehension?

    Do these people really need Alex writing at the top of the article, in huge bolded font "THIS IS A JOKE. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. I ACTUALLY OPPOSE SOPA.".

  • [email protected] (unregistered) in reply to Just Kelly

    So hilarious I read it to my wife, that and the comment, too.

  • Leonardo Pires (unregistered)

    I'm prepared for SOPA. Today I sent my car to repair. I removed 1st to 5th gear. Now there's only reverse gear! :D

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    PiisAWheeL:
    Zylon:
    PiisAWheeL:
    Nobody likes having their stuff ripped off. So tell me, then, as a creative: I assume you have done some research into SOPA and PIPA, explain to me WHAT exactly they are going to do to prevent you from getting ripped off?
    I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're drunk.
    Lets pretend for a minute i'm sober, would YOU like to answer the question?
    I would answer your question with a question: WhyTF are you asking me? All I was doing was making fun of creative people who refer to themselves as "creatives".

    If you were sober you would have noticed that.

    If you were trying to make fun of the people calling themselves "creatives", then you quoted the wrong person. My use of the term creative was refering to whats his face.

  • Thuktun (unregistered) in reply to Tom
    Im removing The Daily WTF from my RSS reader, I don't want to have anything to do with someone who supports SOPA ! :-/
    Try reading the entire article next time.
  • (cs)

    This may be the first time I've seen TDWTF steal a joke from Fark.com

  • (cs)

    Well, there we are then. Seems we lost all the hysterical, jumping-to-conclusions, illiterate readers with half a brain who don't have a sense of humour.

    So, it's just us now: the sane, level-headed, intelligent, thinking folks who can take a joke and who are not afraid of a little sarcasm.

    No, no, wait... what was I thinking? This is TDWTF.

    Oh well, just me and the trolls then.

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Tom

    Did you even read this...?

  • Support Gopher (unregistered)

    I support the GOPHER standard unequivocally. I hate HTTP(s) as much as you do.

  • Ben Jammin (unregistered)

    Raise of hands - Has anyone of you actually read these bills or are you just going off what you've heard elsewhere?

    Sites dedicated to thievery will be banned. If someone posts copyrighted works to Youtube, Youtube isn't going to be brought down. They already have processes to remove that material (read: Uncle Sam already looks at what you look at, so this bill doesn't introduce that aspect.) This in no way effects free speech. It effects the copying of free speech that someone else said and is charging for.

    The reason these bills are dumb is 1) DNS blocking, which has been pointed out as useless, and 2) forcing liability of illegal sites onto others, and 3) the guilty until proven innocent aspect.

    Advertising agencies, payment gateways, and search engines should not be held responsible for linking to illegal sites. If a thief buys a ski mask from Academy Sports, Academy should not be held responsible when that mask is used for ill-gotten gains. Neither should Wikipedia be held responsible for content talking about Pirate Bay.

    The ability to take down sites because your competitor said you were dedicated to stealing their stuff until you respond through some bureaucratic nonsense, is unethical. But given due-process, their ability to remove illegally motivated sites, is right.

    (As a side note, I love all the people who don't read unsubscribing to TDWTF. This means I don't have to read their uninformed comments in the future.)

  • Support Gopher (unregistered)

    No access to forums. Why is this the case today?

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to Ben Jammin
    Ben Jammin:
    Raise of hands - Has anyone of you actually read these bills or are you just going off what you've heard elsewhere?

    Post under your real name, cowherd!

  • Ha Ha (unregistered) in reply to [email protected]
    So hilarious I read it to my wife, that and the comment, too.

    Did she get it?

  • Jellineck (unregistered)

    So it looks like the blackout is working. I look forward to the next blackout when some political entity votes in a way that does not please the rest of the internet.

    Maybe we can start targeted blackouts: If you don't like the way Germans voted on a certain issue, you can block your websites from Germans.

    Meh, what does it matter. My paid subscriptions still work, there is still access to porn, and the Pirate Bay is still up and running so I have access to free movies and music.

    I guess everything else is cruft and I don't really need to use it.

  • me (unregistered)

    Huzzah, death to domain names, death to the Internet, I want to search Wikipedia via the US Postal System!

  • Andrei (unregistered)

    I just hope this post is not Pro SOPA but a view of what the world would be after it

  • Guestinator (unregistered) in reply to Tom

    You're so right. Let's all boycott this travesty of serious legal thought!

    Captcha: damnum (damnum, SOPA is bad)

  • lettucemode (unregistered) in reply to Andrei

    Hell, I knew it was a joke just by reading the title of the article. "Support The Daily WTF in Supporting the Support SOPA Movement"?!? It's got the word "support" in there three times! C'mon now, people.

  • (cs) in reply to Jellineck
    Jellineck:
    So it looks like the blackout is working. I look forward to the next blackout when some political entity votes in a way that does not please the rest of the internet.

    Maybe we can start targeted blackouts: If you don't like the way Germans voted on a certain issue, you can block your websites from Germans.

    I think this is a valid concern, this blackout could set a dangerous precedent. If this blackout works, corporations might start doing future blackouts to protest something different. The next thing you know, the big websites will be using general Internet users as unpaid lobbyists by requiring them to call their Senators and Representatives about other (possibly unrelated, but somehow important to certain higher-ups involved in website management) issue before allowing them access to the site. The last thing I want is website frontpages to block me and bombard me with messages encouraging me to vote for a certain candidate for president because the site owners are afraid the opposition might vote a certain way on something.

    That said, I am indifferent about SOPA/PIPA because I haven't had time to skim the bill and I refuse to pass judgment on it based on what politicians and/or annoying popups on TDWTF and Wikipedia tell me.

  • (cs) in reply to Ben Jammin
    Ben Jammin:
    Raise of hands - Has anyone of you actually read these bills or are you just going off what you've heard elsewhere?
    *Raises his hand*
    Ben Jammin:
    Sites dedicated to thievery will be banned. If someone posts copyrighted works to Youtube, Youtube isn't going to be brought down.
    No, but the bill bypasses due process and leaves enforcement to the copywrite holder. Good in theory, Bad in practice, as its open to too much abuse. Having your content removed simply because someone cries wolf is a terrible idea.
    Ben Jammin:
    They already have processes to remove that material (read: Uncle Sam already looks at what you look at, so this bill doesn't introduce that aspect.)
    This bill makes "any technology" that can "circumvent" the protocol illegal. Things like TOR/onion network with very legitimate uses. Besides, I like to encrypt my connections because its nobodys business what I do on the internet. Simply because the government can try and spy now, doesn't mean that we should make the technologies to protect our privacy illegal.
    Ben Jammin:
    This in no way effects free speech. It effects the copying of free speech that someone else said and is charging for.

    Back to my other comment, way to open to abuse. The bill is setup for "Guilty until proven innocent" with not much in the way of due process. Simply because it doesnt directly affect free speech doesnt mean that people cant abuse it to have specific content removed... having legitimate content removed, even temporarily, is a violation of free speech, among other rights.

    So yes, it has a lot to do with the first ammendment.

  • Nobis (unregistered) in reply to Thuktun
    Thuktun:
    Im removing The Daily WTF from my RSS reader, I don't want to have anything to do with someone who supports SOPA ! :-/
    Try reading the entire article next time.
    Try reading the entire comment next time.
    Im removing The Daily WTF from my RSS reader, I don't want to have anything to do with someone who supports SOPA ! :-/
    See?
  • Sarudak (unregistered) in reply to Tom
    Tom:
    Im removing The Daily WTF from my RSS reader, I don't want to have anything to do with someone who supports SOPA ! :-/

    Is it a troll? Or someone with no sense of humor or sarcasm? If the latter how did they ever enjoy TDWTF?

  • Matt Westwood (unregistered)

    Well I think SOPA is a brilliant idea, so I'm wholeheartedly in support. Freethinking and independence of opinion is not so much a crime as a mortal sin and a blasphemy. So keep at it, good folks.

    As for me, I've already donated several thousand pounds towards the campaign to get SOPA passed, and I encourage each and every one of you to follow my example.

    And for those of you who don't, I'm prepared to back my views up with extreme violence, so you'd better fucking watch out.

  • Danny V (unregistered)

    This has to be one of the most hysterical posts in quite some time. I literally spit out my coffee laughing. Appreciate that you took an uncoventional approach to putting this issue in perspective.

  • Dylesica (unregistered)

    Goodbye, typo squatting and DNS! Hello, SOPA. No more can I miss out on the www.twatter.com phenomenon, or is that www.twitter.com!

  • (cs) in reply to mott555
    mott555:
    Jellineck:
    So it looks like the blackout is working. I look forward to the next blackout when some political entity votes in a way that does not please the rest of the internet.

    Maybe we can start targeted blackouts: If you don't like the way Germans voted on a certain issue, you can block your websites from Germans.

    I think this is a valid concern, this blackout could set a dangerous precedent. If this blackout works, corporations might start doing future blackouts to protest something different. The next thing you know, the big websites will be using general Internet users as unpaid lobbyists by requiring them to call their Senators and Representatives about other (possibly unrelated, but somehow important to certain higher-ups involved in website management) issue before allowing them access to the site. The last thing I want is website frontpages to block me and bombard me with messages encouraging me to vote for a certain candidate for president because the site owners are afraid the opposition might vote a certain way on something.

    That said, I am indifferent about SOPA/PIPA because I haven't had time to skim the bill and I refuse to pass judgment on it based on what politicians and/or annoying popups on TDWTF and Wikipedia tell me.

    3 points:

    1. Capitalism. If you own a website, you can do whatever you want with it. Besides, companies constanly try to influence you in every part of every day. Its called adventising. A stunt like this shows that the company believes that the topic is very important, and they ask for support.
    2. The blackout is pretty consistant with the bill at hand. The ability of 3rd parties to remove access to your server is extremely powerful. These companies showing the blackout are demonstrating that one day, you might want to get to some content and you cant. The complete circumvention of due process means that they can remove content at will, and getting it back is a process. A blackout demonstrates this concept perfectly.
    3. By all means, Make your own decision on the bill. But I highly recommend you do some research on it because it WILL affect you, weather you like it or not. So if you read nothing relate to anything legal all year, read sopa and pipa. And weigh in.
  • Matt Westwood (unregistered)

    Oh yeah, and anything that brings Wikipedia down (even for 24 blessed hours) is a good thing, it's run by a bunch of fucking shitheads. Yeah, you, fuckbrain. Want some?

  • Jellineck (unregistered) in reply to Dylesica
    Dylesica:
    Goodbye, typo squatting and DNS! Hello, SOPA. No more can I miss out on the www.twatter.com phenomenon, or is that www.twitter.com!

    That isn't in the bill anymore: http://www.zdnet.com.au/dns-provision-pulled-from-sopa-339329747.htm

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Two things:

    1. Suitably well written sarcasm is often mistaken for the real thing. The more people who do mistake it for the real thing, the better it is written.

    2. Historically, the internet treats censorship as blockage and routes around it. It always has, and will continue to do so. The story explained a (very antiquated) method.

    Yes, just another "Modest proposal".

  • Jellineck (unregistered)

    "Capitalism. If you own a website, you can do whatever you want with it."

    Then why do my child pornography sites and bomb-making for Jihadis tutorials keep getting taken down?

  • trip (unregistered) in reply to boog

    This reads totally like a Shel Silverstein poem!

  • Sarcasm101 (unregistered) in reply to Mike

    Your sarcasm meter appears to be broken. Please take it to the nearest dealership to get it fixed. Thank you have a nice day.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Troll in Moll
    Troll in Moll:
    It is funny how IT people always equate non-IT people with dumb people.

    That's not true! I think most IT people are pretty stupid, too. I equate non-me people with dumb people.

  • (cs) in reply to Jellineck
    Jellineck:
    "Capitalism. If you own a website, you can legally do whatever you want with it."

    Then why do my child pornography sites and bomb-making for Jihadis tutorials keep getting taken down?

    FTFM
  • duh (unregistered) in reply to Tom

    it's satire. duh.

    CAPTCHA: nobis. apparently what the OP is.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Captain Obvious
    Captain Obvious:
    If JavaScript is outlawed, won't this site lose its main source of material??

    If JavaScript is outlawed, only outlaws will write JavaScript.

  • jonathan (unregistered)

    This was the last time i visit this site!

    Teamwork (opensource/free) > Competition

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to geoffrey
    geoffrey:
    People ignore all sorts of big government initiatives and infringements, but when it comes to curtailing the ability to steal the intellectual property of others, everyone is suddenly an activist.

    Hey now, don't start getting off on warrantless searches. The biggest entertainment I've gotten in years is going to the airport and getting on the line with the pretty female TSA agent.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Troll in Moll:
    It is funny how IT people always equate non-IT people with dumb people.

    That's not true! I think most IT people are pretty stupid, too. I equate non-me people with dumb people.

    Well said, dumbhead!

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Ben Jammin
    Ben Jammin:
    Raise of hands - Has anyone of you actually read these bills or are you just going off what you've heard elsewhere?

    Oh, wait, is that question directed to the general population, or to members of Congress?

    Really now, if members of Congress actually read every bill before voting on it, when would they have time to hold fund-raisers?

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