Put another way, how easy would you find it if the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Foursquare and Reddit switched off?
Well, the truth is, that’s unlikely to happen, although all the above are known to be opponents of the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) which is scheduled to return to the U.S. Senate this week.
Opposition from Internet companies and users has hardened against SOPA and two other pieces of proposed anti-piracy legislation, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which is due to go before the Senate on Jan 24, and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). Opponents claim these are badly drafted works of censorship that will stifle freedom of expression and business development on the web.
Significantly, two days ago the White House also appeared to have come out against SOPA & PIPA with a blog post stressing the importance of those very points.
Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small
The extent to which this has become a battle between the forces of old and new media was made clear by Rupert Murdoch’s furious reaction to the White House statement via Twitter:
So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery. -
And so to Wednesday.
It was Reddit who first proposed switching off in protest, and a number of large websites, particularly in the gaming sector, have said they will join the blackout. Wikipedia has said it would like to join the blackout, but wants to confirm with others that. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Foursquare may well mark the day with some form of protest, but are extremely unlikely to go offline. The degree of their anger shouldn’t be underestimated.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said: SOPA…
…would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world
Foursquare said:
The PIPA and SOPA proposals restrict openness and impose preemptive censorship. If a couple of rogue links are found in our Tips, PIPA and SOPA could allow the government to shut foursquare down. So, either we censor all our users (and sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter do the same) or risk being shut down by the government.
As a startup, this scares the crap out of us. For our 15,000,000-strong community and the over 500,000 local businesses on foursquare, we hope this seems absurd. And for the growing American internet industry and the jobs it creates, this is a kick in the shins.
It seems likely we may, at the very least, see some unusual homepages at our most familiar online haunts on Wednesday.
Will you be protesting on Weds? (There are WP Plugins!)
Image: ThisisBossi
I can see three problems with an “Internet blackout”:
1) It isn’t likely to be effective (does a technology-challenged Congressman from Yokelville really care if Wikipedia shuts down for the day?);
2) Such a protest would be imposed on Internet users, instead of being a protest by Internet users; and…
2) Unless such a blackout were geotargeted to the U.S., it would penalize users in countries that have no say in the SOPA controversy.
SOPA seems to have been stopped already. PIPA is still going ahead. I will be doing something if this is true. Ironically internet and lack of electricity here makes it difficult. But there will be a blackout or huge sign going up on The Longest Way Home Travel Blog if there is still a need to protest about PIPA.
I don’t believe in making protests about another countries political ventures. However this is something that affects everyone with an online presence.
I liken it to the USA giving the world the TSA of internet censorship. And, we all know how good the TSA is.
If SOPA & PIPA are passed our freedom of online speech will be neutered. For giant sites with cash and influence like Google and Facebook they have the might to slap entire nations should SOPA & PIPA be used against them. For a one man show like me, if SOPA & PIPA were used I’d be gone in an instant with little repercussion.
I’m known for standing my ground, blunt honesty and giving the raw reality of situations. It’s not a popular road to take. But I walk it with honor.
On January 18 Wikipedia have announced a black out. There’s a good article on Search Engine Land on how to do it without effecting your SEO http://searchengineland.com/blackout-your-site-without-hurting-seo-108302
In all likelihood SOPA & PIPA will go through in some form or another at some stage. The point is did you make a stand for what you believe in or did you turn a blind eye and hope it would all go away?
” there will be a blackout or huge sign going up on The Longest Way Home Travel Blog if there is still a need to protest about PIPA.”
Why not simply run a big banner across your existing pages? That way, users won’t be inconvenienced or confused, but they’ll still be exposed to your message.
If you do go the “You can’t see anything on my site today because I’m protesting” route, the sign would be the better choice, because “going dark” isn’t likely to get anyone’s attention unless you’re running a megasite like Google or Wikipedia. (If a mom-and-pop site is down, users will just assume that there’s a technical problem or the site is out of business.)
Indeed the “Going Dark” term or “blackout” is being used to indicate a site is simply putting up a redirect to a protest page.
I’ll be putting up a redirect on my journal / blog page to stop SOPA/PIPA page for about 12 hours. I’ll also be running with several other displays throughout the site giving informative links to why stopping these laws in their current format is so very important.