on a soap box it's lights out for some of the web's most visited sites today including look at pedia reddit and craigslist the fact more than seven thousand of your favorite pages went dark to protest legislation that they say could end the free and open web as we know it but will the code of the stop online piracy act and what it means for users like you. and as the biggest websites take on congress so is the occupy wall street movement protesters took their fight to cap.

controversial bill before congress more than seven thousand sites went black in protest including a pedia reddit ross story that's just to name a few even google put up a banner to show their opposition to what critics call government censorship. so the timing of the government shutdown is interesting despite the outrage and protests again so but the feds went ahead and shut down a major site even without sopa being passed so what does this all mean for the future of internet freedom in america well josh harkin's then a reporter for mother jones magazine who was following this story closely joining me just moments ago today and i asked him to give me the inside scoop on how this all went down. it was just fascinating to watch it unfold in real time i mean you know there are dollars and people all over the world who participate in the chat rooms when i was there i was in this chat room for this anonymous splinter group known and it's and on ops where i think any given time there were between a thousand and two thousand people who were logged in and coordinating with each other to launch these den

the information on its popular search engine but more than seven thousand sites including wiki pedia reddit dot com craigslist and wired dot com and others are all went dark in order to protest the draco nian position provisions in the bill their message this what you're seeing right here is what america's internet will look like if the legislation goes through in its current form and folks this can be some scary stuff and there's a lot to discuss here so i want to bring in someone who's been covering this and close detail definitely call is a correspondent for c n n news and here is his take on how these bills would affect you. if they are not physical and that is their current form yes what they do is they create an internet blacklist so bad. that are accused of harboring piracy and that would allow copyright holders in the u.s. department of justice to going to order requiring that they seem to be in contact with whatever source or rather you use a home to block to them is something that hasn't been done before in history of the us the internet and if they're not dead in their current fo

news but coming up next in about a half an hour is the big picture with tom hartman look look at pedia reddit roster and others of the lock outs tom is going to tackle this issue to talk about privacy internet freedom and what these a web sites and the corporate lobbyists out in hollywood are trying to do. and he's also going to look at the whole issue of limited government and the sort of libertarian paradise has and vision to by the likes of wrong paul and some folks in the tea party is that really what our founders envisioned well tom will weigh in on it all. and of course for more on the stories you saw tonight or any other night check out our team dot com slash usa or argue to page you tube dot com slash r t america and follow me on twitter that's at lucy craft and of getting. letters that say much given to you should be sitting on the mark with one featuring a wide range of issues the standoff between iran and western powers has branched out is the west preparing for a military confrontation. if you.