I couldn't be more proud of my website I help administer Yehoodi.com than I am today. Our team has taken the decision to join hundreds of other websites around the world -- including Wikipedia , BoingBoing and Reddit -- in shutting down our site on January 18 in protest of the PIPA / SOPA bills before Congress.
I'll be taking down Rikomatic and Betterverse as well. But that won't have the same impact as Yehoodi, which is the largest community website for swing dancers in the world.
Here's what we just posted:
So we are shutting the site down for a day, to show our opposition to these bills.
Yehoodi.com is not by any means a political advocacy site, although we host our fair share of political discussions and debates. But PIPA and SOPA is a threat to this site, and millions like it.
Yehoodi has always been an open community platform for our users to post nearly anything they wanted to -- funny pictures, links to awesome music, cool videos, and websites. We also publish our own podcasts, streaming radio show, and special features. If even one of those tens of thousands of postings by us or our users was found to be infringing on copyright, the entire site could be shut down. That's not alreet.
We agree with a broad coalition of internet engineers, tech pioneers, and free speech advocates that these bills threaten free speech and set a bad example for other less democratic countries to follow in controlling the internet. While we support the rights of artists, musicians, filmmakers and other content creators to get fair compensation for their work, these bills go far beyond what is necessary to punish violators of intellectual property laws.
So don't be alarmed when you see Yehoodi not loading as normal on January 18 -- get active! See these websites for more information:
We'll be back to our normal nonsense on January 19.
It's on! (or, it's off! Whatever.)
