Bam! Thwack! Pow! The Internet Gets a ‘Cat Signal’

Posted on May 28, 2012

Internet Defense League

The Internet loves cats, so much so that a group calling itself the Internet Defense League has selected the “cat signal” as its emergency warning to Web surfers that some nefarious threat to Internet freedom is rearing its head in the halls of Congress or elsewhere.

Member websites of the IDL hope the alerts will rally Internet users against such threats, including future bills that would enable corporations and government to censor parts of the Internet, just as SOPA and PIPA have proposed to do in the past. —ARK

The Atlantic Wire:

The roster of websites that have already signed up reads like the Internet’s own version of the Justice League. According to AllThingsD, “WordPress, Imgur, Reddit, Cheezburger Network, Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark” have all agreed to participate.

The group plans to help organize websites around a specific issue that might threaten the Internet as we know it. Whenever the Defense League wants to organize a new cause, they send out code to participating websites that adds a pop up message—the ‘cat signal’—for every new user that visits the site. The message will ask visitors to participate in some form of protest, like “a prominent message asking everyone to call their elected leaders,” according to the IDL’s website.

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