5 years ago, on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, Reddit went dark. We shut down the site for the day and encouraged people to read over the proposed bills #SOPA and #PIPA and call their Congresspeople in protest. These bills would have fundamentally broken the internet and were considered inevitable just a few months earlier -- after this day, they were considered unthinkable. Tens of thousands of websites joined in; Wikipedia went dark, sites like Google changed their logo in support, and the NY tech community protested outside our Senators' offices. And I even put on a tie for the event. It was an amazing feeling, seeing a totally grassroots movement succeed to protect the open internet, the very platform that made it all possible. We knew we'd have to always stay vigilant, but I worry that we're going to have to work even harder in the years to come. We're up for the challenge. Let this be a beginning...