MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
|
|
Websites going dark in protest of proposed legislation
By artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 2:43am |By Jon Swartz and Scott Martin, USA Today, Jan. 17, 2012
More than a dozen websites planned to go dark Wednesday to protest a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills they claim will gut the Internet and stifle free speech.
Wikipedia, Moveon.org, Craigslist, user-submitted news site Reddit, the blog Boing Boing and the Cheezburger network of comedy sites planned to participate in a blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills. [...]
URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-17/sopa-pipa-blackout/52622786/1
- 1687 reads
Comments
New York Times' coverage:
by artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 2:50am
... yawn ....
So what does a 24-hour black out serve?
As much as I hold Italians in contempt ... had a garage there change out my car radio and found out later they just cut the wire connectors on both radio and in the car dash and spliced the ends together instead of using the adapter I gave them ... they have a one trick pony that would be a model to follow - hiccup strikes. Every few days or so, drop out for an undetermined number of hours. Better yet, once one starts, others follow at staggered intervals to make it a wave effect. And keep it up until the Congress announces they'll leave the internet alone.
by Beetlejuice on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 1:28pm
Whether effective or not is open to debate, but the 24-hour black out of sites like Wikipedia serves to make people aware of the issue in front of Congress who might not otherwise be aware of it - and this in turn can lead to some members of Congress to rethink their support of the bill.
by Elusive Trope on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 3:07pm
It raises awareness. I know this might surprise you, but many people just don't know much, if anything, about SOPA. Having it on Google's front page (for example) should reach a lot of people who use the internet on a regular basis.
by Verified Atheist on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 3:13pm
So what does a 24-hour black out serve?
Apparently some Congresscritters do pay attention when big entities like Google & Wikipedia express being upset in this manner about some of those mysterious innertubes issues that hardly anyone usually pays any attention to or understands And I would suspect that this might be a rare special case where what they did is much more effective than lobbyist dollars, because Congresscritters, their families, friends and their constituents use those sites themselves. Top of Google News home page now:
That doesn't mean it's going to work as well if it was done again or often. The novelty factor probably worked a lot to their benefit. (I would argue that it's part of what people pay lobbyists for, to come up with new novel ways to get attention from Congresscritters on an issue, to realize and listen to another side of a story when they've only been hearing one side)
by artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:08pm
P.S.. for those who don't have NYT access, the next two graphs are quite interesting on the "who":
by artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:14pm
Yeah, the campaign seems to have -- dare I say it? -- won. Its sponsors had already begun tweaking/diluting it. Now I don't think we'll see even a drastically retweaked version till after the election. If then. Yay!
by acanuck on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:26pm
I love the smell of running dog fear in the morning...Seeing the sponsors scatter like roaches in a Brooklyn kitchen when the lights go on (tmi?) is a beautiful thing.
by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:30pm
ooh, great analogy, gets everything across in few words!
by artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 6:52pm
I have a new idea in lobbying, and it's all down to Newt's brilliant plan to substitute nine year olds for janitors
I think fannie/freddie could have gotten way more bang for their lobbying buck using my new company Boy (and Girl) Rangers--who's gonna say no to a nine year old kid? spozed to start at 8:55 but can't make the sophisticated youtube editing dialog box work cuz too old or too high)
Wow! just rewatched the last four minutes montage--they've got firehoses on peaceful marchers, carloads of nine year olds brutally murdered--Capra did not play!
by jollyroger on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:27pm
In Canada, Google has been business-as-usual today (no blacked-out logo). Wikipedia is blacked out here, the same as in the States -- much more effective at raising awareness of the worldwide nature of the threat. I love Wikipedia.
by acanuck on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:21pm
I love lamp.
by Qnonymous (not verified) on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 5:53pm
On Googlepower (& of course, the question comes to mind, will it corrupt?)
by artappraiser on Wed, 01/18/2012 - 11:02pm