Another anti-piracy law? Really?

As if the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act weren’t bad enough, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is the newest media-based bill on the floor of Congress.

CISPA incorporates all of the worst parts of the first two bills while adding its own individualized versions of censorship. This new law would give the government access to user information, most often without the knowledge of the user.

More surprisingly than the bill itself, though, are the supporters of it. Mark Zuckerberg, creator and CEO of Facebook, has backed the bill, forcing his own Internet users into a frenzy.

To most users, Facebook is one of the most free and accessible opportunities to post comments about their personal ideals about politics and other ideologies. If Facebook has the ability to give this information to the government, it is taking away the one opportunity for truly free expression that makes the site so friendly to users.

Zuckerberg never threw his support behind SOPA or PIPA along with the outrage of millions of users.

We have to respond in a manner that shows Zuckerberg just how much we care. Now, in most cases, the easiest threat would be to start using Google Plus, but let’s be honest — that isn’t a realistic option.

Not only is Google Plus exceedingly less popular and less user-friendly, Google is just as, if not more, manipulated by these laws than Facebook. Google has already changed its privacy settings this year, which indicates that it isn’t a valid replacement. So when that isn’t enough, taking to Facebook with statuses, memes and blogs in full force will clearly portray the view of the public.

This opens the door for the same type of response for this round. The age of social media empowers the public to have not only a say but also quite a bit of sway in what happens on the floor of Congress.

Joining together to actively protest this bill, which is so horribly working to restrict the freedoms of the general public, is just one of the opportunities that is available. To use his own tool against him, the Facebook communities can easily manipulate the ways in which Zuckerberg uses his signature and whether this law goes into action.