This Guy Is Running for President of the Internet [WTF Friday]

October 12, 2012 2:00 pm     Posted in Homepage Exclusive, News, Tech, WTF  Katie - Miami University (OH) g+ page


By Katie

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of popular social news website reddit.com, is now running for office. Sadly, you won’t see him in any of the upcoming election debates because he is running for a position of his own creation: President of the Internet.

Some of you may remember an online “blackout” back in January, where sites such as Wikipedia and reddit made their content temporarily unavailable for several hours. This was all sparked by two bills being discussed in congress: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), which would have given the government the ability to control and monitor online information, and even shut down sites – which prompted website owners to participate in this blackout to give web users an idea of what the net may be like had these bills passed.

Ohanian used reddit to rally this cause and led the movement to stop the passing of these bills, which further triggered a campaign to “Save the Internet” from regulation. A Declaration of Independence has been drafted, and there is even an opportunity to become a part of the Internet Defense League to prevent another SOPA/PIPA attack. Apparently, in the cause of Internet Freedom, there are many “real-life” actions and consequences of a political nature.

Read the article on Buzzfeed for more info!

What are your thoughts on Alexis’s Internet Freedom crusade? With the interaction between politics and the net, would having a presidential candidate be reasonable?

[Lead image via]

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