Today is the first anniversary of the online protests against SOPA and PIPA that helped turn U.S. Congress against voting for the restrictive Internet piracy legislation.

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More than 100,000 websites participated in an online blackout on Jan. 18, 2012, with Google, Craigslist, Reddit, Wikipedia and others directing visitors to contact their representatives about the threat of online censorship, and some of them disabling their availability in protest. Two days later, the bills were shelved.

So some activists have declared January 18 is now Internet Freedom Day. They suggest taking various actions to honor the occasion. For instance, banding together in memory of Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide a week ago after being federally indicted for downloading academic documents with the intent to release them publicly.

There are also physical get-togethers in San Francisco and Washington, DC.

Categorised as: Chief Digital Officer | Digital Media | Feedster

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