US Web censorship bill may slash the threads of the Net

Legislators responsible for governing the Internet in China must be a little bit tickled by what's going on in the United States at the moment and even tempted to say, "I told you so."

Having been repeatedly ticked off for "harmonizing" the Net, or checking the total free flow of information within its virtual borders, it appears that American legislators want to follow the same path - or even go a bit further and meddle in other countries' business.

I refer to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would sign off on a law that appears to be aimed at fighting copyright infringement, but, its many detractors claim, would in fact lead to censorship.