Yesterday was a historical day for the Internet. Many of the largest websites we visit (Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist…etc) had some sort of visual protest of two Congressional bills that are currently under consideration in the House of Representatives (SOPA) and the Senate (PIPA).
It was really neat seeing many of these large websites showing their opposition to these two bills, while encouraging customers and clients to contact elected officials to let them know how they feel about these bills. As an American, freedom of speech is a right we are given, and being able to publicly protest legislation is important to this democracy.
In the past, we only had newspapers and other print publications to save and reference historical dates and events. There is now an alternative to the old way: Screenshots.com.
Screenshots.com was launched by DomainTools in December of 2011, and it archived the home pages of many websites that protested SOPA and PIPA. If you visit, you can see a visual gallery of the SOPA / PIPA protest. The protest is fresh in my mind now and is discussed in a variety of publications both online and offline, but it will be forever recorded visually on Screenshots.com.
Personally, I think it would be great if individuals could create accounts on Screenshots.com and archive articles and websites that are important to them. This could be good for many reasons both good (perhaps a mention in a prestigious publication) and bad (perhaps archiving stolen content or libel).