Free Internet Act
Description
Dean Praetorius:
"When two proposed anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA looked as if they could become law, social news site Reddit helped organize a large-scale online protest that led lawmakers to table the bills indefinitely. But the activism didn't stop there, and now Redditors are trying to draft legislation of their own.
"The Free Internet Act," as the idea has been tentatively named, intends to preempt any future legislation aiming to limit the scope of the Internet or censor content. Redditors have turned the "r/fia" page into a place to craft something they'd like to someday see become a standard for governing the Internet.
The group's self definition, from "r/fia," reads as follows:
- The Free Internet Act: To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by preventing the restriction of liberty and preventing the means of censorship. FIA will allow internet users to browse freely without any means of censorship, users have the right to free speech and to free knowledge; we govern the content of the internet, governments don't. However enforcements/laws must also be put into place to protect copyrighted content.
An Austrian Reddit user, who goes by the name "RoyalwithCheese22" and prefers to remain semi-anonymous, started the thread with the intention of building a piece of potential legislation that could be a means for compromise.
"The idea is to aim high," the thread reads. "This is the same strategy employed by SOPA/ACTA pushers. We are aiming absurdly high, so that we can back down and reach a compromise."
While Royal is the moderator of the "r/fia" subreddit, he has said he wants the process to remain community-driven.
“I’m not the leader, this is a real community project,” he told Mashable. “Whatever the community decides will be done.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/22/the-free-internet-act-reddit_n_1291853.html?1329950176)