One year ago , a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire , igniting a storm of protest that toppled his country 's oppressive government in less than a month . The anger swiftly spread , as activists and bloggers , organizing through social media platforms like Twitter , Facebook and YouTube , set off a season of revolution that is still shaking the Arab world . Yet as the first anniversary of that event approaches , a new threat to digital activism is looming -- in the United States . On Thursday the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act , which would force social media platforms to pro-actively monitor and censor users to prevent them from posting words or images that might violate copyright . Website operators who fail to do so could be blacklisted and prosecuted . The bill and its Senate counterpart , the Protect IP Act , would empower the attorney general to block allegedly infringing websites based anywhere on Earth . The drafters of both bills do not mean to stifle online dissent and activism . Their goal is to protect intellectual property , especially from piracy by websites overseas . The problem is that the bills ' legal and technical solutions are very similar to mechanisms that authoritarian regimes use to censor and spy on their citizens . Our organization , Global Voices Online , is an international network for citizen media . We support the protection of intellectual property ; many members of our community earn all or part of their living by creating copyrighted work . We worry , though , that the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act will inflict broad unintended damage on digital activists living under repressive regimes as well as restrict speech freedoms at home . Even existing copyright law is abused in attempts to stifle criticism and public debate . Take the case of Trevor Eckhart , a security researcher who wrote a critical blog post last month about a little-known software program called Carrier IQ , which runs on millions of smartphones and logs information about users ' activities . Rather than address Eckhart 's claims , Carrier IQ responded with legal threats , accusing him of copyright violation because his analysis included copies of its manuals , even though the manuals were publicly available on the company 's own website . After the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation came to Eckhart 's defense , the company withdrew its threats and apologized . If the Stop Online Piracy Act becomes law , online speech like Eckart 's will be more vulnerable to censorship . Those seeking to abuse copyright law to stifle criticism will be further empowered . To comply with the Stop Online Piracy Act , Eckart 's service provider would have had to actively monitor what he was posting to prevent him from violating copyright . If there is doubt about whether a post is or is n't `` infringing , '' website operators will be under pressure to avoid legal problems just by blocking or deleting it -- even if there is a good chance a court of law would eventually rule that it is protected speech . In countries whose judicial systems are less independent and where legal defense for bloggers is rare , abuse of copyright law to stifle activism is much easier . The Russian government last year used a crackdown on software piracy as an excuse to confiscate activists ' computers . The Chinese government used copyright claims to crack down on critics of the 2008 Beijing Olympics who sometimes used modified images of the Olympic mascots in their critiques . `` In China 'copyright ' is one of many excuses to crack down on political movements , '' a Chinese blogger , Isaac Mao , told us . `` If a new law like SOPA is introduced in the U.S. , the Chinese government and official media will use it to support their version of 'anti-piracy . ' '' Amendments could narrow or eliminate some of the bills ' most dangerous features . Congress could pass a better , though still problematic , bill . Yet even these efforts fail to address the deeper problem : that some members of Congress are seeking to regulate the global Internet for the benefit of the U.S. entertainment industry . At the same time , members of both parties in the House and Senate ( including some sponsors of both bills ) have expressed impassioned support for global Internet freedom , sometimes chastising the executive branch for not doing enough . Last week Rep. Christopher Smith , R-New Jersey , introduced a new version of the Global Online Freedom Act , which aims to punish companies that sell censorship and surveillance equipment to authoritarian regimes or support the suppression of online dissent around the world . In recent years , Congress has repeatedly allocated funds for tools that help Internet users get around those surveillance regimes . It is thus only reasonable to expect that Internet-related legislation should be consistent with Congress ' repeated commitment to uphold and protect rights of Internet users globally . Contributors to Global Voices on all continents face increasingly sophisticated surveillance and censorship . Several are in jail right now because of their online activities , and others are in exile . Passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act or Protect IP will send a loud signal to governments everywhere that it is fine to monitor and censor citizens ' online behavior to catch and prevent `` infringing activity , '' which too often means political and religious dissent . The result will be a world even more dangerous and difficult for bloggers and activists than it already is .
Ivan ##ov and Rebecca MacKinnon : Congress is mulling bills to stop online piracy . Laws would make social media users proactively police for copyright infringement , they say . They say drafters mean to protect copyright , but effect would be to stifle dissent . Writers : Laws should reflect Congress ' s commitment to protect rights of Internet users globally .