Social Citizens Weekly Round Up #7

Each week, we’ll cull the interwebs for the most relevant articles, videos and commentary about Millennials and social change, and then present them right here in a weekly round-up. It’s not to say we won’t also provide our own fresh content and perspectives throughout the week, because we will—as will our provocative and savvy Social Citizen Ambassadors. But you can view this space as a central repository for all of the great stuff that’s filling our newsfeeds, twitter feeds, and Facebook streams.

We’ll do the curating for you, just come by and pay us a visit – and drop a comment every now and then to let us know how we’re doing and what we’re missing. And now for this week’s round-up…

What’s up with all this talk about SOPA?

A number of popular websites went dark yesterday to protest two pieces of legislation—the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. As explained by David A. Fahrenthold of The Washington Post, “Both are meant to attack the problem of foreign Web sites that sell pirated or counterfeit goods. They would impose restrictions forcing U.S. companies to stop selling online ads to suspected pirates, processing payments for illegal online sales and refusing to list Web sites suspected of piracy in search-engine results.”

Fahrenthold notes that “The idea is to cut off the channels that deliver American customers, and their money, to potential pirates. But tech companies see the laws as a dangerous overreach, objecting because, they say, the laws would add burdensome costs and new rules that would destroy the freewheeling soul of the Internet.”

Congress is set to begin voting on the legislation next Tuesday. Make sure your voice is heard no matter which side you are on in this debate.

Get Your Degree from Codecademy

We love Codecademy here at Social Citizens—it’s a quick and easy online platform that teaches anyone who cares to learn the basics of coding. Codecademy, along with the White House, this week announced the launch of a new condensed version of its program called “Code Summer+.”

Tech Crunch reports that this new program is designed to educate the nation’s underprivileged and disconnected youth as part of Obama’s larger Summer Jobs+ initiative. If all goes accordingly to plan, both Summer Jobs+ and Code Summer+ will link to lead youth to jobs, with Summer Jobs+ aiming to create 250,000 job opportunities for youth by the beginning of this summer. Employers can also get involved here and offer jobs as part of this program.