The Megapost: Not Just Your Average Meta-post

DISCLAIMER: Okay, I may have exaggerated a bit there with the title. I do actually plan on delivering a wholly average meta-post, a blog post in which I reflect on my semester of blogging and nothing else. So let's get started, shall we?

When I initially looked back upon my first-ever blog post for the semester, it rekindled in me a burning desire to pour out my views, ideas and feelings on whatever subject I may choose for all the world to see. As I reread through my blogging portfolio, however, I found that this burning desire had often become my biggest pitfall, as from that first post onward it had led me to make the same mistakes again and again throughout the semester.

The most aggregious offense I found in my posts as I revisited my old writing was a distinct lack of direct evidence; I did not quote a single source in that first post, and I seemed to believe that copious linking to other sites and articles was some sort of substitute for direct evidence and thoughtful analysis. Rather, this post now comes off as the emotionally-charged ravings of a madman, a rant about a personal topic that should have by no means been interesting to anyone but myself. This is most evident in my use of the words "reliable" and "unreliable," which I used freely- and unfairly- to describe various news outlets. As a first post on a new blog, it was a bold and ultimately senseless move to start deciding for the reader which news sources were reliable and which were not. Unfortunately, this exclusion of direct evidence became a trend, as I only included evidence in three other posts since then.

Yet that first post has been, by far, the most successful post on my blog overall, largely in part to another mistake I have made frequently in my posts since then: lack of conciseness. Most of my blog posts have been exceedingly long, even without direct evidence. This has led to posts like this unfortunate follow-up to my first post, in which I managed to write four paragraphs without quoting a single source. The post was essentially just an observation that I had made one day and, because of that burning desire I mentioned earlier, had to share with the world. At the end of the post, I wrote in summation that "this is just one example of a story archetype," freely admitting that everything I had written in that post was simply "an example." Not an argument, not an analysis, but an example. Even worse, it was an example of something that proved interesting to very few people, something I never took into consideration while writing it.

Yet while I have repeatedly made some of these mistakes in my posts over the semester, I am proud to see that I have still been improving in my posts as a whole, as is clear in my post ...With a Little Bit of Luck. I regard this post as an evolution of that weak second post, as it is similarly lengthy and not very conducive to discussion, yet it is no where near as uninteresting and rambling as that post and it is actually based around a source that I had found (a New York Times article). In this post, I wrote that "to me, this article reads more like a 'what to do if you are a genius' advice column." I am glad to see that in this one sentence, I am both analyzing the source I chose and personalizing the topic by expressing that this is, in fact, purely my opinion- what the source means "to me." The former is an important aspect that I was missing in my second post and the latter is one that I was missing in my first post, showing that, while I had taken a few steps back in some areas, I was showing signs of overall improvement in my blog.

Another thing I am proud of in my blog as a whole is that over the course of the entire semester, nearly every one of my posts has connected to a discussion or lesson we had in class. Whether it was our lesson on textbook impartiality or one of our many discussions on socioeconomics and education, I have been consistent with ensuring that every post I write has a purpose, that everything on my blog has a right to be there, even being so explicit as to write "hot on the heels of our civil liberties unit" in my post No Hope For the Unseen to ensure that the reader never wondered why the post's topic was relevant.

After reviewing and analyzing my blogging portfolio, it seems that my blog may be turning a new leaf. So far, I have made only incremental improvements while often repeating old mistakes, yet the very fact that I am now aware of this progression is a step in the right direction. I believe this meta-post may be my best blog post yet, as creating it has helped me see what kind of writer I am and, in writing this, I have already started trying to improve my form and correct my mistakes. While our blogging assignment in American Studies has always been about improving our craft as writers, this post has been a huge leap to that end, and for that I am truly grateful to have participated in this assignment and to have had the privilege of becoming an American Studies blogger.

SOPA

Late last year- that is, October of 2011- a bill was introduced to Congress that would effectively eradicate online piracy and digital copyright infringement. The bill was known as SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and was designed to help copyright holders protect their properties by enabling them to seek legal action against any websites that are "facilitating copyright infringement." This means that websites that host unauthorized use of copyrighted materials would be liable to be sued and/or shut down by the owners of those copyrights. Unfortunately for many, this legislation would have directly affected websites such as Youtube and Imgur, which freely host videos and images uploaded by millions of users. Websites like these would have been liable for every single piece of copyrighted material uploaded by their users, meaning that, when this bill passed, Youtube could have been immediately sued for its hosting of this adorable clip from UP. As a result of SOPA, media-hosting websites like Youtube and Imgur would thus have to have started censoring user-uploaded content and limiting the ability of their users to freely share and access the media on their sites. This is still not as bad, though, as the effect this bill would have on social networking websites. Places like Facebook and Twitter would no longer be free spaces for sharing information and media, as if any one of their hundreds of millions of users chose to share a single piece of copyrighted material, they could be shut down. A good analogy I heard for the affect of this bill is that if a customer at a bank chose to store something he/she had stolen from someone else inside a safe deposit box at the bank, the bank could be sued or shut down by the owner of the stolen material. Clearly, the bank in this situation should not be at fault for this, nor should it be considered to be enabling theft. It just seems ridiculous to me, and the result would be that Facebook and Twitter would have to start strictly censoring the content uploaded by its users or be prepared to face legal action for it. Of course, for these websites, that would severely affect their ability to serve their only purpose, which is to allow people to freely share information. In this sense, SOPA could have rendered Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and essentially every other social networking website defunct.

At this point, you may be thinking "Boy, this sound terrible! I'm sure glad this bill never made it past congress!" Or you may not be thinking that. Assuming, though, that you're thinking that, I've got quite a surprise for you. The bill is still up for a vote, and the topic is still being debated hotly in congress. In fact, frighteningly enough, there is a significant chance that this bill could be passed when the house judiciary committee reconvenes to discuss it later this month. Fortunately, legions of online rights activists and web afficionados have come together to lobby against the bill, creating various online petitions (including an official whitehouse.gov petition which managed to garner the site's required 25,000 signatures in a matter of two days) and generally making it abundantly clear that a large number of people are not happy about SOPA. As you can probably already tell, I believe that this bill has clear, negative affects on our first amendment rights and I am all for quashing this thing as soon as possible. I'd love to hear what you think, though. Does this bill go too far, or is it important in the fight against online piracy? Feel free to leave a comment below.