Folks, you might want to get those Guy Fawkes masks out, and start working on your next anti-ACTA sign, because there’s a very real chance the European Parliament is going to circumvent the European Court of Justice and ratify it themselves. Initially, the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) protests resulted in the decision to have the Court review the treaty, but a recent vote opposing such a measure has passed.

Now, it appears as if the European Court of Justice is no longer in the picture. AKAScope has the details, courtesy of Reddit:

Protests in European regions had taken place with the committee responsible for ACTA in the European Commission responding to the protests by stating they would send ACTA to the European Court of Justice… A decision in the parliament [opposing the] help of the European Court of Justice, however, has instead taken place. ACTA is now going to passed or failed within the European Parliament with the final vote being decided in the next ten weeks.

The report also reveals the final vote in the EP will occur between June 11 and June 14. If the vote passes, the supporting countries will gain a level of control over the Internet that has not been seen before.

As I suspected, the general public isn’t acting too concerned about the news concerning the ACTA treaty. I guess the average Internet user needs Wikipedia to blackout before they can react. A quick look at the current Twitter trends, in light of this article going wide, is disappointing. Clearly, it’s easier to revel in being uninformed, choosing instead to tweet about Dumb and Dumber 2 instead of worrying about how much Internet freedom they’ll have in the near future.

Once again, folks who follow such inane trends won’t react until Google and Wikipedia tell them to. It’s a good thing our European neighbors are a lot more informed, seeing how they’ve singlehandedly spearheaded the anti-ACTA movement. Thankfully, however, not all of the Twitter traffic is ignorant to the damage the treaty can cause:

Which is reason enough to keep the protest alive and kicking.

What she said.

For those of you who are wondering why you should protest the ACTA treaty, start with Wikipedia and go from there. If, after that, you’re still choosing to follow useless trends, then maybe your Internet freedom should be restricted.

If, however, you’re moved to take part in the “Stop ACTA” protest, start here.