Philippines, what are you doing?

Remember SOPA? PIPA?

Remember how the internet largely shut itself down in protest of this legislation?

Unfortunately, it seems that the Filipino government doesn't. Just this week they passed a new Cybercrime Prevention Act that some have said "makes SOPA look reasonable." While there are legitimate claims made within the legislation, this act falls prey to the same primary criticism as SOPA and PIPA - the phrasing is not specific enough to prevent widespread abuse that would result in the suppression of free speech.

As Paul Tassi says,

"Who exactly is libel for the libel? Is it the person who made the statements? Anyone who reblogged or retweeted them? The website on which the comments were made? Anyone who commented in assent or even clicked ‘like’? The way the law is worded, the Filipino police could actually charge you with simply criticizing them or the government in a way they deem “malicious,” a word very much open to interpretation."

You can get 12 years in prison for a Facebook like. That's pretty ridiculous.

It should be no surprise that the Cybercrime Prevention Act has been met with quite a bit of protest. The BBC, News.com.au and (my personal favorite for the large cache of info-graphics) GlobalVoicesOnline all speak about the opposition that this legislation is facing, but the courts have pushed off a petition ruling until sometime next week.

We were able to stop this in the US (for now) - can it be stopped on the other side of the world?

You can head over here and sign the change.org petition.