Information is Power: Google and Wikipedia protest anti-piracy bills

I don't follow politics real close but yesterday as I looked up something on Wikipedia, I noticed that they had a message saying they would be blacking out the site for a full day in protest to some anit-piracy bills proposed by the US. It was well covered in the news last night as well and now I see that Google is speaking up (along with others). What strikes me more then anything is how powerful these organizations. He who holds the information definitely holds the power.

Let me be upfront in that I signed the petition Google has posted and fully agree that government should not be censoring the internet. That being said, what I find most fascinating in all of this is the impact and reach that these sites have on our lives. It will be interesting to see how many people sign the petition but my guess is that it turns into an unprecedented number that the Senate will have to take quite seriously. Really Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Wikipedia and other have so much information that is relied upon by so many that at in a matter of hours they seem to have seemingly made a huge statement. Imagine the impact if they took more drastic measures. It's almost scary to think of.

Of course we could go back to looking things up in the hard bound encyclopedia, using the newspaper classifieds, and communicating with our friends via phone or snail-mail but who wants to do that. I'm guessing not even the politicians behind these highly scrutinized bills would be in favor of that. Fortunately our 1st amendment rights on the internet will likely stay in tact thanks to Power of Information possessed by these large websites. Let's just hope that as we continue to become more dependent on them, that Google's original "Don't be evil" motto is not forgotten.