I know there's a lot of cynicism about whether SOPA law is really being abandoned, or whether it's just being temporarily shelved, but I'm really excited about how opponents have banded together, and how organizations like Reddit and Wikipedia have been willing to sacrifice page views and revenue to show their support and to increase public awareness.
In the future, when someone advocates opposing an unjust law and someone else responds that opposition is futile, the anti-SOPA efforts will serve as a compelling and encouraging counterargument.
They should capitalize on the momentum and create an organization that can get everyone mobilized quickly in the future.
Politicians kiss up to tiny groups just because they are somewhat influential...think of billions going to subsidies for farmers or even tiny 1 issue groups. Surely together, the tech community is much more influential than them.
EDIT: I was unclear. "create an organization that can get everyone mobilized quickly in the future." From the wiki page of moveon.org: "They started by passing around a petition asking Congress to 'censure President Clinton and move on', as opposed to impeaching him." It was a single-issue online activism group that grew into an organization known for quickly mobilizing lots of people for political causes. I should have been more specific! :)
MoveOn.org is a blatantly left-wing organization, whereas supporters of a free Internet come from the left, the right, the center, and the north (Libertarians, if you're using the Nolan scale). Even if MoveOn.org were to embrace the tech community and Internet freedom, they support a whole boatload of other causes that many Internet freedom supporters, myself included, disagree with, and use rather tactless advertising strategies.
If we are going to start an organization dedicated to Internet freedom, it needs to be focused solely on that issue, or at least similar issues such as freedom of speech in the general sense, and not get into the other controversial topics like health care and foreign policy that have the potential to divide us.
You may joke, but I find the Internet to be more libertarian than anything else, and by that I don't necessarily mean the people on it, but how the Internet works.
not exactly, I'm talking more about a group like the NRA or AIPAC or NCAAP...something powerful enough where every presidential candidate has to come in and kiss up to get the group's approval.
Something where a candidate getting rated a C or D or F by the group, means the kiss of death in politics.
And something, with the following to get mobilized quickly to knee cap any bad legislation before it can even get out of committee.
The tech industry makes up a huge part of the GDP...but there is very little unified influence for people to respect it.
This organization is the EFF. If it can't do what you dream of, it's just an indicator that internet freedom is not a hot button issue for a large enough percentage of the electorate.
The politicians will claim it is dead, then name it something else or not name it anything at all and just tack it onto the end of some other legislation and pass it when no one is watching.
they may be able to keep the people from knowing about it until it happens, but with all this outrage it seems unlikely they'll be able to keep it quiet after the fact. Then they'll have to answer to this behavior come election time.
They don't care. They honor those who buy the lobster dinners and give them 30 dollar cigars. When you vote them out, they'll have several six or seven figure cushy job offers to pick from.
---
From wikipedia: In February 2011, despite "repeatedly and categorically insisting that he would not work as a lobbyist,"[22][23] [senator Chris] Dodd was identified by The New York Times as the likely replacement for Dan Glickman as chairman and chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).[24] The hiring was officially announced on March 1, 2011.[25]
The individuals may end up with six/seven figure cushy jobs, but the party may still suffer long-term consequences.
When you're in politics, money is only good for one thing: buying votes. However, if a force stronger than free t-shirts and pens makes itself noticed, like mass-media reminding people how they got screwed, then interesting things can happen.
I think the main issue here with these people is that the Internet is not controlled so tightly as traditional media. And we are just starting to see the social effects.
The internet might not be as tightly controlled but think of the Great Firewall of China. In addition, it's an excellent tool for surveillance.
People periodically realize that they are being screwed over, yet most of the time after the initial outrage nothing happens. There may be some scandals but wait 6 months and it's all forgotten.
That's what sucks. Everyone you pick from (except Ron Paul probably) doesn't really represent you. I think Obama had really good intentions, but then he ran up against reality aka Congress.
I don't think he represents me, but I think he'd actually represent the values of the people who vote for him, which I think is more than I can say about any other candidates.
I just think that when Americans' main hope to reform their system is a 76 year old guy running for president, there is a bigger problem.
Granted, this guy is an ideologically pure multi term congressman loved by many people. But if Obama got gray hair from 4 years, I can only imagine what the congress is gonna do to this fiery fellow...
I wouldn't be so pessimistic about it and I'll tell you why.
In democracy the mass-media has traditionally played the role of a fourth branch of government. However in recent times the traditional mass-media companies ended-up too controlled, either by owners that are also in politics, by legislation, or by the sheer pressure of catering to shareholders. But if you think about it, the social changes that the Internet has brought are only starting to emerge.
So IMHO, meet the new fourth branch of government: the Internet. And surely Internet companies can still be controlled, but the Internet is much more ethereal than traditional mass-media ever was and now the whole world is watching. Hello from Romania ;)
I think this is exactly right, @bad_user. The extent to which this is true blew up last Thursday, when Arthur Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, went to his readers with a question:
"I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about."
As Clay Shirky observed, the response was "swift, voluminous, negative and incredulous."
But the most damning remarks came from readers themselves. The comments on Brisbane's post, and the one from Executive Editor Jill Abramson that followed, were absolutely incandescent.
So yes, the total implosion of the 4th Estate is coming into the open. And that's a very new development. That other big difference is that 10,000 calls to a Senator's office is a lot. So what happens if they ALL get 1,000,000? It's an absolutely off-the-charts response. You know there's opposition. You expect a few grenades to be tossed. Instead, a thermonuclear bomb detonates.
It's entirely possible that the response to Wikipedia's move will be the single largest driver of negative traffic in the history of Washington DC. It's the kind of searing experience that tells previously complacent politicians that, suddenly, they've got a major electoral issue. And not just on this one bill, but on literally everything they do.
I agree with folks who say this cannot end with the derailment of SOPA/PIPA. It has to continue until the flow of campaign cash from lobbyists ends, and the revolving door is welded shut.
The most likely move is to slip this authority into a defense/anti-terror bill. It'd be a fairly straightforward exercise in legalese to create wording that grants the government the right to blacklist domains/addresses under the auspices of fighting terrorism.
And while the wording will suggest terrorism, it will be sub-defined to cover illegal enterprises in the aggregate and that, as they say, is the ballgame.
And when that version of the law gets attacked, the defense is the same straightforward jingoism and propaganda that has successfully fended off attacks on the recent, more-egregious intrusions into our liberty.
If people can't see past some flag-waving to get fired up about the executive having the explicit authority to bug your internet connection, search your car, attach a GPS tracker or even unilaterally declare you no longer deserving of your constitutional rights and bundle you off to secret prison, they're not going to see past it to get fired up about what the government might do to their websites.
SOPA can be left to die on the vine, which was less of a concern than the supporting industries and politicians having such powerful draw on our livelihoods. Whether SOPA, PIPA, etc are alive or not, acts like these -- Wikipedia, Reddit, etc blackouts -- or tech pundits -- Dan Kaminsky (DNS hacker) and Alexis Ohanian (Reddit.com co-founder) on national TV -- still need to happen; the general public needs to know of the grievous acts, passed or not, of industry and their politicians. Otherwise, as we continue to echo, these same groups will create a separate set of laws under another guise and continue to push their ideals.
I think that it's crazy that all of this effort is going into opposing SOPA. It seems that there should be a bill/effort drafted to codify the freedom of the internet, and making DNS blocking illegal.
The only thing that might help is a constitutional amendment. A law can easily be overwritten. An amendment at least gets some oversight from the Supreme Court.
I made an additional donation to Wikipedia because of their stand on this issue.
Seth Godin was right when he said "If the user supports it, she owns it. If support comes from anonymous government money, or some corporate sponsorship, then the interactions don't matter so much, and it's more distant from you."
I have never felt closer to Wikipedia than today.
Is this US only, or is this going to take it offline for the whole internet? The article doesn't specify, but last I checked there was strong support for a US only blackout.
If all non-US citizens that use the English Wikipedia had US citizen friends they could engage politically, US politics would look vastly different already.
But SOPA would affect us english speaking non-US people too, so raising awareness in the rest of the world is a good idea. We should be putting pressure on our own governments to a) not pass a SOPA-like law themselves and b) to not support the US in this, for example, Spain shouldn't cave into US pressure to pass a similar law.
It's English language Wikipedia. Which will affect people who SOPA doesn't affect.
I wish it was delibrately USA only. Then US policy makes can see how SOPA will not only "break the internet" but also put US citizens and groups at a disadvantage on the global stage. Maybe that might get their attention aswell?
This and the cheezeburger network will put it in the eyes of people who wouldn't have seen it otherwise. Sites like reddit already preach to the choir! Go team internet!
It will send a strong message for PIPA as well as the similar legislations in future. I still like to see google,facebook .. to come up with something creative on their front page.
I don't think this is a good idea. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that many people depend on all over the world. Encyclopedias should not just switch off for political reasons. Books don't turn off. Digital information should not turn on and off either for any reason. A big red banner covering half the page can get the message across without actually making us unable to access the information stored in wikipedia.
No, if SOPA passes and Wikipedia is targeted, Wikipedia can move to another country. It's just the people in the USA who won't be able to access it (like people in other countries with national firewalls)
>Encyclopedias should not just switch off for political reasons.
Characterizing this as a "political reason" does a huge disservice to what the events of the 18th are all about. This "political reason" has the potential to ruin the internet forever. The point of the blackout is to give people a taste of what could happen under SOPA/PIPA/etc. And get them to call their representatives, and get the word out.
Reddit and HN squawking about a law won't do much on its own. Getting the word out in a meaningful way, meaning impacting sites that the average (non-techie) joe would access, has the potential to be much, much more effective.
Something to the effect of "THIS COULD HAPPEN PERMANENTLY IF LAWS LIKE THIS PASS".
Between Cheezburger, WP, and some of the other sites out there, this is going to be a very, very interesting Wednesday.
If you want to help, take the complaining you're doing now and direct it at Congress (or your local equivalent if you're not in the USA). You can thank them for these shenanigans.
EDIT:
Keep in mind, even if you're not in the USA, this impacts you (and I don't just mean the blackout). So much of the internet's structure is located in the USA (IANA, ICANN, registrars, etc) that any bad legislation here has potentially global reach. SOPA/PIPA is a good example of such bad legislation.
There are a lot of political issues that could ruin the internet forever. The example I've been throwing out in this thread - nuclear weapons. Could destroy all of humanity. Does Wikipedia step in to get all countries to destroy nuclear weapons?
How bad does some political issue have to be for Wikipedia to get involved? And note that SOPA is far down on the list of "universally thought of as evil for all humanity" things that people would like to see changed.
I agree. Taking a stand and putting up a banner, or a click-through page, etc is fine. But information services like Google and Wikipedia shouldn't actually be shut off in a way that makes the information inaccessible.
> But information services like Google and Wikipedia shouldn't actually be shut off in a way that makes the information inaccessible.
And that's exactly what SOPA would do. Permanently. Nobody is preventing you from accessing today's Wikipedia content on your own this Wednesday - go download a copy of their db right now if you're that scared and fearful of a day without it. The point is a strong demonstration of what the world would be like with SOPA/PIPA. It's necessary.
So shutting off information services is evil, and we're going to show it by committing the same evil? By that token we should teach everyone how bad genocide is by executing a random member of their family.
We should certainly get people's attention by doing something very overt like replacing every article with a big dark SOPA message, but there really should still be a way to click through to the information.
> We should certainly get people's attention by doing something very overt like replacing every article with a big dark SOPA message, but there really should still be a way to click through to the information.
That's fine for us mega-nerds, but what about everyone else?
There's a philosophical distinction between suicide and murder and martyrdom. Just like there is between being thrust into a furnace and setting yourself on fire.
I actually don't know what it's going to be like to work on Wednesday without Wikipedia. But I think it's in all our interests to find out and put a face on these bills.
I strongly think Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Amazon (not AWS) should all proceed with the nuclear option on the 18th, even though congress has temporarily shelved SOPA. The reality of the situation is that very few people outside of the tech community have any idea about SOPA and PIPA and how it jeopardizes the Internet.
So, what happens when I call my Congressman after learning about this on wikipedia and his office says "oh SOPA, that bill has been put on hold already since last week"? Won't many people get pissed at wikipedia?
Edit: I actually think they should call it off at the last moment. Save the nuclear option for another time.
I wonder, who does the average American trust more: their Congressman or Wikipedia?
(also: Wikipedia can easily put in a line next to the "Call your rep" section addressing this. I don't know about you, but "on hold" doesn't sound very final to me.)
I'd reckon most Americans, as guarded as they may be about politicians, would take the word of the office of a Congressman. It's crazy how easily people buy into things because it comes from a supposedly official source.
Congress as an institution has <10% approval, but most individual congressniks will keep on getting re-elected. "All politics is local", etc. It's never "your" congressnik, except in cases of infidelity or some other egregious media-hounded event.
It's no longer about sopa, it is about notifying everyone in the world that there are governments all over the world trying to centralize and censor the internet, and that this is a very very bad thing. It isn't enough that we slap their hand for trying to break the internet on account of complete ignorance. The odds are 1 that Congress will try this again, we need to let the world know that the people who built the most powerful tool on earth today are concerned that governments are going to set us back 100 years and prevent an explosion of progress by turning the internet into a place only the fat cats can afford to participate in.
Even with SOPA being put on hold, I still feel like the general public needs to be made aware of the fact that there are people in the government who are threatening to censor the internet. Wikipedia shutting down for a day will go a long way in demonstrating what a possible consequence of a censored internet could be and I think that'll be invaluable to the fight against a censored internet.
With that being said, I think the websites that are protesting on the 18th need to be evangelists for a free internet and not just deliver an anti-SOPA message.
Supporters of this censorship should be shamed and humiliated to set an example for future attempts. Make them regret their willingness to sell the American public.
"[congressperson], i'm relieved that you and your colleagues agree with me that SOPA is not in americans best interests. I'd like to thank your for listening to the opinions of your constituents instead of bowing to pressure from lobbyists. I know that hollywood will continue to push for more legislation like this in the future, and i'm grateful to have a representative in congress that will continue to fight for my rights." blah blah blah...
call your congressperson, let them know that you we've won (even if we really haven't) and that we're still watching, we aren't going to forget, and that they can't pass this when we're not looking. This is a big win for us, because everybody likes friendly phone calls more than they do angry yelling. SOPA being shelved allows us to continue to push our message, but from a friendlier perspective that makes us easier to listen to.
the shutdowns still need to happen. people need to be know what kind of legislation the entertainment industry is trying to pass and we need to be ready to fight against it next time it comes up. if wikipedia shuts down tomorrow, it sets a precedent so that next time this issue comes up people already know the consequences.
Former WMF counsel Mike Godwin (and former DC lawyer) just commented on the Foundation mailing list:
Dan, you're misreading the implications of what the story you link to
says. What's actually happening is that the House sponsors hope to
defuse opposition by delaying and slightly modifying SOPA. My
experience as a DC lawyer for much of my career strongly suggests that
there's no reason to suspend expressions of opposition to SOPA or PIPA
or the general effort by content companies to change the internet as
we know it. In my view, it is wholly incorrect to say "that time is
not right now." Anything that the legislators can interpret as a lack
of resolve from the internet communities will encourage them to
resubmit SOPA or its equivalent in another form. The time for
protesting this is, in fact, right now.
SOPA has been put on hold, not completely removed from discussion. And even if (hopefully when) SOPA is completely removed, it is likely that something similiar might be introduced in the future.
Now that the topic has been brought up. a very strong showing of oppositions to the concepts contained in SOPA as well as SOPA itself is a very useful thing.
To me, the real lesson from SOPA and PIPA is that the tech industry needs to spend a lot more money bribing (oh, excuse me, lobbying) senators and representatives to counter all the money flowing from the entertainment industry.
Also, it's an embarrassment that BOTH of California's senators not only support PIPA, they are listed at co-sponsors.
Nonsense. There are loads of bad US laws (e.g. terrible employment rights, terrible anti-discrimination rights) that the rest of the world, or EU don't copy and aren't affected by.
The affects of SOPA passing would probably be a benefit to many countries, since more companies & jobs would come to their juristiction (some countries in EU do this with more favourable corporate tax laws, or look at Switzerland and Cayman Islands with banking laws.)
None of those laws are at all related to censoring the Internet, which is a global network, so non-US citizens using US websites (like Facebook, Youtube, etc) are still affected.
Tell that to the UK citizen that's being extradited to the USA for American copyright violations. Also, The Pirate Bay claimed that the 2006 raid on their servers resulted from pressure from the MPAA.
That was one of the proposed actions, but it looks like they didn't choose it. Which is a shame. US-only will not harm those that have no congressperson to write to, but it will also be an interesting talking point in the US media, who might start asking if SOPA will force jobs out of USA (which it might well do).
I'm tired of these acronyms, it got confusing today. Are politicians just trying to smuggle it through under a different name at this point? I can't think of a name from recent events with more negative connotations than SOPA, which seems to be why it was abandoned. Are these anti-SOPA messages worth the cost of downtime at this point?
We still need to inform people about the issue and it's better if we're the first people to inform them. Because we know they'll try again later, we need to remain vigilant and prepare for next time. It's much too early to relax. That's exactly what they want us to do.
The aim is to get people to contact representatives. Wikipedia is an excellent tool for procrastination. You need to remove Wikipedia (and as much of the rest of the WWW as possible) to ensure people actually follow through and call or write their politicians.
It's just one day. Are you really that reliant on Wikipedia that you can't go a single day without using it? It seems to me a lot of the people against the blackout don't have any long-term reasons why it might be bad, only discomfort.
My previous firm depended on wikipedia. We would often have to get up to speed on very diverse industries and their core metrics overnight, and wikipedia was the first source that was available and easily searched.
With the English site black out, this will affect the world far more than just America.
As a matter of fact this is probably something that we should study and be prepared for.
How do the other data/encyclopedia sites fare during the black out? Is there a real effect, how long does it last?
What is the impact on non US visitors? Shouldn't the black ideally focus on people from the States?
Heck actually, this will probably offend a lot of people who aren't in the states - Indian sites can easily spin this as cultural propaganda (for example).
The more I think about it, the more the point raised higher up in this thread (regarding neutrality) starts bothering me.
A complete black out of the English Wikipedia is (hopefully) a once in a life time event. Considering the diversity of people who come to the site and the different cultural baggage everyone brings, this action will have far more repurcussions than just SOPA/PIPA.
While time zonal differences should mitigate this effect, the blackout should not affect visitors from countries where SOPA makes little difference.
" the blackout should not affect visitors from countries where SOPA makes little difference."
I'll make the claim that most english speaking countries in the world will be affected by this. This bill is supposedly targeting foreign website. It could mean a European site getting blocked by PayPal because of an American law.
In the process, for a long while, "softer" proposals were leading, like what you propose. But in the past few days support seems to have shifted towards much more disruptive protests. Maybe the fact of having a date on the calendar suddenly has galvanized people.
I really wish this was done to globally to protest against internet censorship of any kind instead of being such a US centric thing. It feels shortsighted.
I wonder if SOPA will help unite some of the web big guns, obviously they are teaming up to call out SOPA but maybe this will help develop further relationships and we'll see some partnership projects grow. SOPA could end up doing more good than it does harm, assuming this backlash see's it off.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 205 ms ] threadhttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120116/02442717414/harry-...
In the future, when someone advocates opposing an unjust law and someone else responds that opposition is futile, the anti-SOPA efforts will serve as a compelling and encouraging counterargument.
Politicians kiss up to tiny groups just because they are somewhat influential...think of billions going to subsidies for farmers or even tiny 1 issue groups. Surely together, the tech community is much more influential than them.
EDIT: I was unclear. "create an organization that can get everyone mobilized quickly in the future." From the wiki page of moveon.org: "They started by passing around a petition asking Congress to 'censure President Clinton and move on', as opposed to impeaching him." It was a single-issue online activism group that grew into an organization known for quickly mobilizing lots of people for political causes. I should have been more specific! :)
If we are going to start an organization dedicated to Internet freedom, it needs to be focused solely on that issue, or at least similar issues such as freedom of speech in the general sense, and not get into the other controversial topics like health care and foreign policy that have the potential to divide us.
Something where a candidate getting rated a C or D or F by the group, means the kiss of death in politics.
And something, with the following to get mobilized quickly to knee cap any bad legislation before it can even get out of committee.
The tech industry makes up a huge part of the GDP...but there is very little unified influence for people to respect it.
Confusingly enough, they're sending out messages now reading "end the SOPA blackout!" that actually refer to the lack of media coverage of SOPA.
In the USA, they're bought and paid for.
---
From wikipedia: In February 2011, despite "repeatedly and categorically insisting that he would not work as a lobbyist,"[22][23] [senator Chris] Dodd was identified by The New York Times as the likely replacement for Dan Glickman as chairman and chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).[24] The hiring was officially announced on March 1, 2011.[25]
When you're in politics, money is only good for one thing: buying votes. However, if a force stronger than free t-shirts and pens makes itself noticed, like mass-media reminding people how they got screwed, then interesting things can happen.
I think the main issue here with these people is that the Internet is not controlled so tightly as traditional media. And we are just starting to see the social effects.
People periodically realize that they are being screwed over, yet most of the time after the initial outrage nothing happens. There may be some scandals but wait 6 months and it's all forgotten.
Two party system, long term is only long enough for the other side to screw up, so 4 or 8 years tops.
And he would run into the exact same reality as Obama.
Granted, this guy is an ideologically pure multi term congressman loved by many people. But if Obama got gray hair from 4 years, I can only imagine what the congress is gonna do to this fiery fellow...
In democracy the mass-media has traditionally played the role of a fourth branch of government. However in recent times the traditional mass-media companies ended-up too controlled, either by owners that are also in politics, by legislation, or by the sheer pressure of catering to shareholders. But if you think about it, the social changes that the Internet has brought are only starting to emerge.
So IMHO, meet the new fourth branch of government: the Internet. And surely Internet companies can still be controlled, but the Internet is much more ethereal than traditional mass-media ever was and now the whole world is watching. Hello from Romania ;)
"I'm looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about."
As Clay Shirky observed, the response was "swift, voluminous, negative and incredulous."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/...
Within 24 Hours, Vanity Fair turned Brisbane from an object of outrage into one of sheer mockery.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/01/Should-emVani...
But the most damning remarks came from readers themselves. The comments on Brisbane's post, and the one from Executive Editor Jill Abramson that followed, were absolutely incandescent.
So yes, the total implosion of the 4th Estate is coming into the open. And that's a very new development. That other big difference is that 10,000 calls to a Senator's office is a lot. So what happens if they ALL get 1,000,000? It's an absolutely off-the-charts response. You know there's opposition. You expect a few grenades to be tossed. Instead, a thermonuclear bomb detonates.
It's entirely possible that the response to Wikipedia's move will be the single largest driver of negative traffic in the history of Washington DC. It's the kind of searing experience that tells previously complacent politicians that, suddenly, they've got a major electoral issue. And not just on this one bill, but on literally everything they do.
I agree with folks who say this cannot end with the derailment of SOPA/PIPA. It has to continue until the flow of campaign cash from lobbyists ends, and the revolving door is welded shut.
The most likely move is to slip this authority into a defense/anti-terror bill. It'd be a fairly straightforward exercise in legalese to create wording that grants the government the right to blacklist domains/addresses under the auspices of fighting terrorism.
And while the wording will suggest terrorism, it will be sub-defined to cover illegal enterprises in the aggregate and that, as they say, is the ballgame.
And when that version of the law gets attacked, the defense is the same straightforward jingoism and propaganda that has successfully fended off attacks on the recent, more-egregious intrusions into our liberty.
If people can't see past some flag-waving to get fired up about the executive having the explicit authority to bug your internet connection, search your car, attach a GPS tracker or even unilaterally declare you no longer deserving of your constitutional rights and bundle you off to secret prison, they're not going to see past it to get fired up about what the government might do to their websites.
Question: Do people oppose the bill so fiercely because they are worried about censorship, or because they don't want to pay for stuff?
* Push a dodgy law to the brink of a vote
* Get the opposers to bluster into obscurity
* Sneak the same legislation in under other laws/names later in the year.
(* Profit????)
They do this all the time.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463847
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464227
EDIT: downvoted for pledging $1 to wiki for blackout? interesting.
Seth Godin was right when he said "If the user supports it, she owns it. If support comes from anonymous government money, or some corporate sponsorship, then the interactions don't matter so much, and it's more distant from you." I have never felt closer to Wikipedia than today.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/12/who-owns-wik....
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3072800
Not sure how I feel about that as there is nothing non-US citizens can do.
I wish it was delibrately USA only. Then US policy makes can see how SOPA will not only "break the internet" but also put US citizens and groups at a disadvantage on the global stage. Maybe that might get their attention aswell?
I believe this is the point of the demonstration.
Would SOPA care for those arguments?
Also, if you're that scared, you've been given fair warning. Download a copy for your archives, so you can keep using Wikipedia while it's offline.
Characterizing this as a "political reason" does a huge disservice to what the events of the 18th are all about. This "political reason" has the potential to ruin the internet forever. The point of the blackout is to give people a taste of what could happen under SOPA/PIPA/etc. And get them to call their representatives, and get the word out.
Reddit and HN squawking about a law won't do much on its own. Getting the word out in a meaningful way, meaning impacting sites that the average (non-techie) joe would access, has the potential to be much, much more effective.
Something to the effect of "THIS COULD HAPPEN PERMANENTLY IF LAWS LIKE THIS PASS".
Between Cheezburger, WP, and some of the other sites out there, this is going to be a very, very interesting Wednesday.
If you want to help, take the complaining you're doing now and direct it at Congress (or your local equivalent if you're not in the USA). You can thank them for these shenanigans.
EDIT:
Keep in mind, even if you're not in the USA, this impacts you (and I don't just mean the blackout). So much of the internet's structure is located in the USA (IANA, ICANN, registrars, etc) that any bad legislation here has potentially global reach. SOPA/PIPA is a good example of such bad legislation.
How bad does some political issue have to be for Wikipedia to get involved? And note that SOPA is far down on the list of "universally thought of as evil for all humanity" things that people would like to see changed.
And that's exactly what SOPA would do. Permanently. Nobody is preventing you from accessing today's Wikipedia content on your own this Wednesday - go download a copy of their db right now if you're that scared and fearful of a day without it. The point is a strong demonstration of what the world would be like with SOPA/PIPA. It's necessary.
We should certainly get people's attention by doing something very overt like replacing every article with a big dark SOPA message, but there really should still be a way to click through to the information.
> We should certainly get people's attention by doing something very overt like replacing every article with a big dark SOPA message, but there really should still be a way to click through to the information.
That's fine for us mega-nerds, but what about everyone else?
Uh, no. That's not the same token at all.
I actually don't know what it's going to be like to work on Wednesday without Wikipedia. But I think it's in all our interests to find out and put a face on these bills.
A 24-hour blackout on only the English version of the site is fairly reasonable to raise awareness of an issue as important as SOPA.
Even if that political reason threatens to shut off the encyclopedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6430796/English_Wikipedia_(A...
(I'm not actually in Ireland at all any more, so it's not blocked for me either.)
Edit: I actually think they should call it off at the last moment. Save the nuclear option for another time.
(also: Wikipedia can easily put in a line next to the "Call your rep" section addressing this. I don't know about you, but "on hold" doesn't sound very final to me.)
With that being said, I think the websites that are protesting on the 18th need to be evangelists for a free internet and not just deliver an anti-SOPA message.
call your congressperson, let them know that you we've won (even if we really haven't) and that we're still watching, we aren't going to forget, and that they can't pass this when we're not looking. This is a big win for us, because everybody likes friendly phone calls more than they do angry yelling. SOPA being shelved allows us to continue to push our message, but from a friendlier perspective that makes us easier to listen to.
the shutdowns still need to happen. people need to be know what kind of legislation the entertainment industry is trying to pass and we need to be ready to fight against it next time it comes up. if wikipedia shuts down tomorrow, it sets a precedent so that next time this issue comes up people already know the consequences.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2012-Janua...
Now that the topic has been brought up. a very strong showing of oppositions to the concepts contained in SOPA as well as SOPA itself is a very useful thing.
Also, it's an embarrassment that BOTH of California's senators not only support PIPA, they are listed at co-sponsors.
Note that I otherwise support Wikipedia on this.
The affects of SOPA passing would probably be a benefit to many countries, since more companies & jobs would come to their juristiction (some countries in EU do this with more favourable corporate tax laws, or look at Switzerland and Cayman Islands with banking laws.)
If Wikipedia is still going to shut down then I'm not sure about the veracity of that article.
I don't think they expected such opposition, unlike other laws like the Patriot Act that mostly went unnoticed.
But they are just regrouping. It ain't over.
I mean, get awareness out, but then still let us read the articles (even with white-on-black text, maybe?)
The aim is to get people to contact representatives. Wikipedia is an excellent tool for procrastination. You need to remove Wikipedia (and as much of the rest of the WWW as possible) to ensure people actually follow through and call or write their politicians.
With the English site black out, this will affect the world far more than just America.
As a matter of fact this is probably something that we should study and be prepared for.
How do the other data/encyclopedia sites fare during the black out? Is there a real effect, how long does it last?
What is the impact on non US visitors? Shouldn't the black ideally focus on people from the States?
Heck actually, this will probably offend a lot of people who aren't in the states - Indian sites can easily spin this as cultural propaganda (for example).
The more I think about it, the more the point raised higher up in this thread (regarding neutrality) starts bothering me.
A complete black out of the English Wikipedia is (hopefully) a once in a life time event. Considering the diversity of people who come to the site and the different cultural baggage everyone brings, this action will have far more repurcussions than just SOPA/PIPA.
While time zonal differences should mitigate this effect, the blackout should not affect visitors from countries where SOPA makes little difference.
I'll make the claim that most english speaking countries in the world will be affected by this. This bill is supposedly targeting foreign website. It could mean a European site getting blocked by PayPal because of an American law.