If you haven’t heard, on January 24, the US Congress will vote to pass two game-changing bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which basically allows  corporations and the government to interfere (i.e., shutdown or sue) with online activity they deem unsavory, dangerous, or just plain don’t like. The implications of these bills are huge and should they pass, would affect the way we share and communicate on the internet. Creativity and content on websites like YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter (among thousands of others) will be stifled, or worse, silenced.

So on January 18, the SOPA strike begins. For 24 hours on Wednesday (January 19, Thursday for us not on US time) websites like wikipedia and reddit will shut down their sites in protest of the controversial bills. But if these websites are a part of your daily blog-roll, or you’re cramming a paper for History class, don’t panic, we’ve come up with some ways to deal with this monumental day when we’re encourage to basically “break the internet.”

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1. Read a book.
Remember when we weren't glued to a screen 24/7? Or when people didn't yell "Google it!" at you when you asked a question? When books actually had the ability to capture and hold our attention? Pick up a book you've been meaning to read for a while and commit to at least an hour for reading it.

2. Use your apps!
The good news is that even if you're not on your computer, you're probably always armed with your smartphone anyway, and if you've got the wiki app on your iPhone or Android, you can still access the information you need through their app.

3. Encarta it!


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Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia was the wikipedia of the '90s, and most of us that grew up during that decade actually made use of it pretty regularly, and it wasn't bad at all. So if you can dig up your old Encarta CD-ROM, (if it isn't scratched up by now) you've pretty much got a good alternative for wiki, at least for 24 hours. Just don't count on it having any pop-culture references past the millennium.

4. A list of wiki-like websites that won't be shutting down.

Project Gutenberg
IMDB
Encyclopedia.com
eHow.com
Encyclopedia Britannica

5. Finally, sign the petition.
Even though we aren't U.S. citizens, if these bills pass, the repercussions will affect the entire world. So if you've got an internet connection, and you enjoy posting arbitrary, boredom-killing, time-sucking content on the internet, then spread the word and sign the petition to protest the passing of these two that pretty much kill your freedom of speech. Think about all those potential zings/burns you can post anonymously on YouTube, and now think of never being able to do that again.

Join the strike or if you're a U.S. citizen, sign the petition.

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