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Thanks to massive protest from online activists from all over the country spanning all spectrum of political partisanship, congressional leaders tabled SOPA/PIPA for now. The battle is not over though. We are just in a holding pattern for now as we are sure SOPA/PIPA proponents will come back again. Stay tuned.

As you might have heard, many internet-based organizations such as Wikipedia, Google, reddit, and Craigslist are protesting today about two pieces of pending legislation in the U.S. Congress: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). As all legislation is, the bills have ostensibly admirable names and goals, but both bills are fatally flawed and could potentially significantly restrict the freedom of the internet in this country. (That would be "Braveheart free," not "penniless hippie Phish fan free.") SB Nation and Vox Media (its parent company) have posted a statement on the front page of SBNation.com officially opposing SOPA, and I have linked to it above. Normally, we try to stay out of the political fray as much as possible, but this literally could cause the shutdown of a large number of websites that rely on user-submitted content, including our own, so I feel that it's important to raise awareness and make SB Nation's official position known. UPDATE: For anyone who wants to know more about the technical details of SOPA and PIPA, and why they are potentially catastrophic in their current forms, you can read an excellent legal overview from the Wikimedia Foundation's general counsel, Geoff Brigham, and a technical discussion from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is a non-profit that works to ensure a free Internet (among other things).

Politics on Raw Charge aren't to be discussed. In this lone instance, in a sign of solidarity with the likes of Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and numerous other web pages and web properties around the World Wide Web, I'm going to make an exception. Vox Media, which is the parent company of SB Nation and The Verge, has issued a statement opposing (shelved) legislation in the United States Congress known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This link is posted as showing Raw Charge itself is opposed to the legislation, as well as several companion bills in congress that seek to accomplish the same thing: give government broad powers to further control the Internet. Please take the time to read the linked-to statement.

I'm not usually a huge political guy, but I think this is important, especially given the medium of this site. There are two bills before Congress - the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) - that would censor and impose harmful regulations on the Web. The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Click on the link to sign a petition and urge Congress to vote no on these bills.