With the release of
The Dark Knight Rises, some may be influenced to take to the streets to dispense justice, but others are gearing their attention towards the internet and the need to protect it. A group known as the
Internet Defence League (IDL) is launching today with the aim of defending the internet from “bad laws and monopolies”. The League is taking the tactics that helped kill the proposed
SOPA and
PIPA bills and using them as a permanent force for making the internet better.
IDL includes members such as
Reddit,
Mozilla,
Fight for the Future,
Cheezburger Network and
EFF among many others. It describes itself as the Internet’s Emergency Broadcast System or “its bat signal”. The plan is to gather members with one common goal and act on something at the same time if net freedoms appear to be under threat. It must be noted that the group is “a loose coalition that shares a commitment to defending the Internet.” However, members choose alerts to participate in on a case-by-case basis and do not have to endorse all views in alerts.
The simultaneous launch with the release of The Dark Knight Rises is not a happy coincidence. The plan is to broadcast the group’s logo into the sky in five cities around the world, including London, New York, San Francisco and even Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. If you are interested in the idea of vigilante justice for the digital age, you can find out more about the Internet Defence League on its website. Thankfully, it seems a little safer than running around the mean city streets as a caped crusader. The group hopes that it can coax Hollywood out of the lobbying industry and back to making movies.