Join the Internet Defense League

Member of The Internet Defense LeagueYesterday I added a notification bar to this blog which invites visitors to join the Internet Defense League.
The notification bar is one of the several ways to participate with your own site or blog. I really liked the modal version better but that one seemed a tad too disruptive (I’m not 100% sure visitors would immediately understand this being an overlay with the actual blogpost underneath) and based on some tests on webpagetest.org (after adding internetdefenseleague.org and internetdefenseleague.s3.amazonaws.com to my WP DoNotTrack whitelist) it turned out to be significantly slower as well. The notification-bar variant has a more limited impact on page load time; only one extra 4.9KB request before document complete and a total of 5 requests at 14.1KB, which is … acceptable for this performance-nut.
So if you, like me, believe that we as internet-users should unite to take action against any law that goes against our interest (think SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, HADOPI, …), then joining the Internet Defense League might be a good idea.

Tomorrow’s anti-ACTA protests and beyond

Opposition to ACTA is to take to the European streets tomorrow, with protests planned in over 100 cities. But the mob that are the internet-proles  isn’t alone in objecting to ACTA. Here’s a non-exhaustive overview of the point of view of some organisations that will be, in the next few months leading up to the vote in the European Parliament, important parts of the broad anti-ACTA coalition:

If you want to join the anti-ACTA movement (you should), here’s what you can do:

Act up against ACTA

The European Parliament will soon vote on ACTA, an international trade agreement that might have a huge impact on the internet as we know it. The YouTube video below explains some of the ramifications (in a propaganda-esque kind of way, but still) and this Wikipedia-article provides some more objective information and contains links to -a lot- more detailed reviews and criticisms.
The bottom-line: if you’re European and you were supporting the great anti-SOPA-protests in the U.S., this is the time to act yourself! Spread the word and sign one or more of these petitions against ACTA:

The video:

Say NO to ACTA