January 18 is Internet Freedom Day - Celebrate and Share!

On January 18, 2012, the Internet came alive with protests against the draconian Internet censorship measures, SOPA and PIPA. The date has now been dubbed "Internet Freedom Day" and on Friday everyone can join in to celebrate.

Last year, when SOPA and PIPA were introduced in Congress, it looked like widespread Internet censorship would surely follow and Internet users everywhere were concerned.

However, there was a major movement on January 18, when Internet users worldwide starting fighting back. The cause was taken up just before that date by pro-freedom groups, both large and small, and hundreds of thousands of people joined in. Major websites like Google, reddit, Tumblr, Mozilla and Wikipedia joined the cause too.

When January 18 rolled round, over 100 thousand websites blacked themselves out in protest, including really major sites like Wired Magazine, Wikipedia and Wordpress. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets, tens of millions of people participated on the Internet with millions of e-mails and calls to Congress.

Within 48 hours of this major protest, the SOPA bill was shelved, with sister bill PIPA being disposed of very soon after.In 2013, Thunderclap is celebrating this victory and wants to remind Internet users worldwide that the fight still continues. To do this, January 18 has been declared Internet Freedom Day. Anyone wishing to get involved can support this day and spread the word here.

The organizer of this campaign is Fight for the Future, who are "dedicated to protecting and expanding the Internet's transformative power in our lives by creating civic campaigns that are engaging for millions of people. Alongside Internet users everywhere we beat back attempts to limit our basic rights and freedoms, and empower people to demand technology (and policy) that serves their interests. Activating the Internet for the public good can only lead to a more vibrant and awesome world."

The group is also involved in the Internet Defense League, as reported on Digital Journal last year.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341580

Aaron Swartz, computer activist & reddit co-owner has committed suicide

26-year-old computer activist, co-owner of reddit and co-author of the widely-used RSS 1.0 specification, Aaron H. Swartz, committed suicide in New York City on Friday.

This is according to a comment by Michael Wolf, Swartz's uncle, to The Tech.

Confirmation was received from Swartz's attorney, Elliot R. Peters by email: “The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true.”

At the age of 14, Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification. 

26-year-old Swartz is famous for allegedly downloading documents from the JSTOR online journal archive with the intent to distribute them and was indicted in July 2011. Swartz reportedly pleaded not guilty to this and was released on US$100,000 unsecured bail.  If charged he would have faced a potential prison term of 35 years and a fine up to US$1 million.

After this, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he obtained employment with the Avaaz Foundation, which is a non-profit “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.” 

Swartz is one of three co-owners of the popular social news site reddit, and also completed a fellowship at Harvard’s Ethics Center Lab on Institutional Corruption.

In 2010, Swartz founded DemandProgress.org, which "works to win progressive policy changes for ordinary people through organizing, and grassroots lobbying. In particular, we tend to focus on issues of civil liberties, civil rights, and government reform." The group was active recently with a campaign against the Internet censorship bills SOPA/PIPA, and now has over a million members.

Swartz also developed the website theinfo.org which provides free access to public records. He has also been widely cited for his landmark analysis of Wikipedia, Who Writes Wikipedia? Swartz further worked with web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, at MIT, where he helped develop and popularize standards for sharing data on the Web. 

CNET reports that a friend of Swartz, Cory Doctorow, said today that Swartz had battled depression for several years. 

"To the world: we have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it," Doctorow wrote.

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/341136