In my American religious history lecture this morning, the boy sitting in front of me kept trying to look up terms my professor mentioned. He repeatedly went to Wikipedia, only to sigh loudly to find it still blacked out.

Today marks the day major websites go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), two pieces of legislation aiming to combat foreign websites that infringe copyrighted material. The laws would, if enacted, give media companies the right to order service providers, advertisers and search engines to cut off communication with any site that is considered to be violating copyright laws. SOPA is the more dangerous of the two, and it defines a “foreign infringing site” as any site that is “committing or facilitating” copyright infringement. PIPA can only go after sites with “no significant use other than” copyright infringement.

So what the hell does that mean? 

Basically, Congress wants to pass laws to censor the Internet and impede the seamless sharing of information. Sure, that may sound a bit extreme, but think of it this way: if a user on a website like Tumblr or Facebook or YouTube uploads a copyrighted image or video or whatever, SOPA gives media companies the ability to shut down that entire site. Not exactly the smartest legislative wording.

If media piracy over the years has taught us anything, it’s that laws don’t work. Many opponents of the bill have argued that companies like Spotify and Netflix give customers what they want and easily, and this has done much more to stop piracy than laws have.  Big media companies are being dragged kicking and screaming into the new age. Recently, Warner Bros. made headlines when it made the decision to force companies like Netflix and Redbox to wait even longer for new releases. 

While I understand the need to protect creative licensing and copyrights, I believe this law has the potential to do more harm than good. Passing SOPA is opening a Pandora’s Box that can lead to much harsher restrictions on the Internet in the future. Aren’t we the country that always denounce Internet censorship in countries like China and North Korea? It’d be a bit hypocritical to start censoring now.

I read a blog post a few months ago that basically said: “It is no longer cute for our legislators to be technologically illiterate.” Our Congressmen and women love to say, “Oh, I’m not a geek” or “I just don’t ‘get’ technology.” We elected you to be leaders in our country and to know what you’re talking about. If you don’t understand it, please bring in experts before you make sweeping decisions like this one — decisions with unintended consequences.

My brother texted me this morning: “Why is it the people who know the least about technology and the Internet are the ones trying to control technology and the Internet?” Couldn’t agree more, bud. It’s time to shut down SOPA.