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Net Neutrality and Anime – Why you should care?

April 25, 2014 by chikorita157 1 Comment

Back in 2012, many people in the Anime Blogosphere protested against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP because it would have ended the Internet as we know it. These two bills eventually caused so much backlash that Congress had to shelve it.

In January of this year, the Supreme Court has shot down FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, which would have protected the free Internet. Just a few days ago, the FCC has decided that they are not going to keep it, thus effectively killing Net Neutrality.

I know that most Anime fans won’t care about this for the fact that he or she might not know what all of this means and/or just want to watch Anime and interact with the community. However, ignoring this will eventually lead to a rude awakening as it can adversely affect legal streaming sites, Anime related blogs, etc., which is why I wanted to share my thoughts about the whole issue.
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12 Days of Anime – Day 3 – Saving the Blogosphere from SOPA/PIPA

December 15, 2012 by chikorita157 2 Comments

For the third day of Anime, we remember the strike that saved the Internet.
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Reflecting on Today’s SOPA/PIPA Strike… (Update)

January 18, 2012 by chikorita157 11 Comments

As most people knew already, today was the SOPA strike and several anime bloggers like myself have joined in by either blacking out their site or spreading awareness by writing a post about it. If you haven’t known already by now, SOPA and PIPA are two extremely dangerous pieces of legislation that will severely harm freedom of speech, innovation, security and the openness of the Internet. Not only that, it will have profound effects on the Anime Blogosphere as we rely heavily on derivative works to share our thoughts about Anime, which protected under fair use. Most bloggers who didn’t participate and Anime Fans have to realize that this law will not affect everyone in the United States, but everyone if they were to get passed. Therefore, I have been proactively reminding others to keep a close eye on this and take action, even if you are in a different country.

Aside from that, I want to share an exhaustive list that participated or mentioned the bill’s existence (perhaps as an excuse to get out of a post):

Anime Yume
Baka Laureate
Beta-Waffle
Chikorita157’s Anime Blog (this blog)
Desu ex Machina
Ephemeral Dreams
Ganbatte
G-Empire
Just as planned
Kimaguresan’s road to nowhere
My Sword is Unbelievably Dull
Organization Anti-Social Geniuses
METANORN
NewAnimeThursday
Shinde Iie Anime Blog
Subdued Fangirling
and others I probably have forgotten…

With that, the blackout was a success as it caught everyone’s attention even though some very ignorant SOPA/PIPA supporters like Chris Dodd still paints this as a “dangerous” gimmick and usual mainstream media supporters like CNN still against the opposition. On the other hand, the large-scale protest had convinced three co-sponsors to drop their support for the SOPA bill along with thirteen senators dropping support for PIPA, which is good news. Still, the fight isn’t over yet, so we still need to keep the pressure on Congress and supporters for both bills. Continue to spread the word to everyone in the fandom, not just the blogosphere and contact congress! We need to effectively kill both bills so we can keep continuing what we enjoy most, blogging about Anime.

Update: Just today, the creator of the SOPA bill killed it off for good. Not only that, PIPA got delayed indefinitely. This is good news for everyone in the internet, not just our fellow Anime Bloggers. Even with this huge victory, we must stay vigilant so future bills that are similar to these won’t pass by us without our knowledge like the “Indefinite Detention” clause in the NDAA. Needless to say, I hope congress will get behind the OPEN Act that will attack the source rather than the free, open and innovative internet.

Anyway, let’s thank the tech companies, our fellow Anime Bloggers and everyone else who spread the word about this disastrous bill and saved us from censorship… ¶

SOPA, The Cancer that will kill the Aniblogosphere… in America.

November 17, 2011 by chikorita157 14 Comments

In the past few years, there are notable and controversial legislations that deemed as the apocalypse of Anime Industry and its fandom. Just last year, I have shared my thoughts on Tokyo passing a very controversial ordinance called “Bill 156” also known as the Nonexistent Youth Bill, which aims to restrict sexual content. Up to this day, the industries’ impact of the bill is still questionable, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. (Image Source)