Product Blog

Disqus on SOPA and Internet Censorship

Today you might have noticed a small change to the Disqus logo on your dashboard. We did this to draw attention to some controversial pieces of legislation currently under consideration in the US: the SOPA (H.R. 3261) and PROTECT-IP (S.968) bills. Among other things, these bills would require online businesses to actively monitor and police their user contributed data for copyright-infringing material—including links to that material—or risk being censored from the internet in the US. You can learn more here about these bills here: http://americancensorship.org/

It’s probably pretty strange to hear us talking about politics, but SOPA presents a direct threat to both Disqus and online communities everywhere. We’re not alone in this: opponents to the bill include Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Wikimedia, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and countless other online companies.

Sincerely,

The Disqus Team