So that blackout to protest SOPA was something, huh? I mean, I kind of may have slept through it, but you may have noticed that we here at Alert the Audience! decided that we were going to participate in the blackout. But that was pretty much only because WordPress let me delete the blackout message that they wrote and write my own (if you missed it, I wrote “THE WORLD IS ENDING” as a headline and then the body of it was just “SOPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”. Because I’m one hell of an activist, and have quite the way with words).
I have mixed feelings about the blackout, and that’s not related to the farcical indifference I’ve projected towards all of this. A friend of mine, who I will politely say is kind of really into the internet, said this about the protest: “My favorite part about the blackout? Everyone wondering when it was done. NOTHING HAS CHANGED.” And I’m inclined to agree with him.
Wikipedia went down for all of about twenty four hours. WordPress, if an individual blogger had opted in on the blackout, only went down for about twelve hours, and because of the way time zones work, anyone west of Texas was at work probably not giving two shits was WordPress was doing at the time (also it would require that people READ your WordPress site, which, I can tell you from my analytics, is not something that happens often). Google had a page about the protest and SOPA (complete with a practically-unreadable-because-it-was-way-too-fucking-big PDF infographic), but generally stayed Google. Facebook continued to show me pictures of the babies my acquaintances from high school are firing out, and Twitter practically shit itself in a firestorm of trending, rhetorical thoughts (but still wasn’t as upset or emotional as that time when that dildo from Jackass drunk drove his stupid ass into a tree).
As my friend implies, it was business as usual. This could have been so much more. If SOPA et al is going to be as disastrous as everyone says it is, this protest should have been so much more. Instead, it was something to wait out. It was something, as I mentioned earlier, that I successfully slept through. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Wikipedia even give instructions on how to disable the blackout page by disabling the script or something?
If this was a taste of the Max Max-esque dystopian future of the internet…well, there wasn’t enough to taste. Sure, it was probably a minor pain in the ass to go somewhere that wasn’t Wikipedia for information on the origin of the crepe for the duration of your waking hours yesterday, but if you weren’t already convinced that SOPA was a bad thing, did this do it for you? Forgive my incredulity, but I don’t think it did. Blame it on my penchant for hyperbole and the dramatic, but this should have been a fucking strangle hold on the internet, a truly chilling and jarring vision of things to come. Something that even skeptics and conscientious objectors couldn’t ignore. Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, everyone who gave a shit should have given their employees a week or so off and blacked out. Google should have cocked up some search that only included sites without potentially copyrighted material on it. They should have really exploited the fact that we’re so hopelessly addicted to and hopeless without the internet and drove the point home so hard that we would have been begging them to return and lining up in front of any entertainment industry lobbying firm with torches and pitchforks.
Bottom line, SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING THAT MATTERED. That’s not to say that I don’t applaud those who actually took part in the protest, for however long, and far be it from me to claim that the ostensible flood of protest messages to Congress were wasted time and kilobytes. However, I would say that the vast majority of the biggest players on the internet wouldn’t even risk their livelihood for a measly fucking day to attempt to stop what could end their livelihood. And maybe it’s the cynic in me talking, who doesn’t have to worry about the bottom line in an enormous online syndicate, but that’s spineless and something I find hard to get behind. If this is really the internet’s D-Day, the powers that be on the internet are, through flaccid or non-existent actions, making it seem like there’s about as much at stake here as a non-finalist episode of “America’s Next Best Dance Crew”. And most people don’t give a flying shit about how “Best Dance Crew” ends. It would be a shame for SOPA to share that fate in public opinion.
WHHHHHHHHHAT? I love next best dance crew.
This is why calling your Congressman as part of the protest was so vital.
Definitely, and I have, but I was going to anyway. In my opinion if you’re going to stage a demonstration like that, it should be to make those with indifference or even opposition want to change their minds, and I’m unconvinced that the casual nuisance that was most of the blackout did anything more than organize the already assembled troops. Sure, that’s DEFINITELY something, but it falls short of what I think needed to be done if this is as dire a threat as it’s purported to be. I wrote this not to complain (though I did a pretty awesome job at that), but more because I want to open a discussion with someone out there, so that maybe this train of thought I’m having will be proven wrong. I know you feel pretty strongly about this issue, so I would be delighted if you wanted to provide a counterpoint, and I mean that in a completely non-combative way.
I’d argue the blackout itself was effective, if for no other reason than the fact that the internet is such an integral part of everyone’s lives. Due to the spread of influence for sites that participated in the protest such as Google and Wikipedia, i think that awareness of the bills was spread far faster and more effectively than if there had been a report in the mainstream media. From what I had noticed (and correct me if I’m wrong), prior to the blackout, neither SOPA nor PIPA were really receiving all that much media coverage, and what little was being received was supportive coverage on the part of Fox News. While I do feel there needs to be additional actions taken beyond the blackout, I’m in the camp that says it will take time to see how big of an impact the actions of yesterday actually had.
Let’s look at it from an entirely different angle. Think of the blackout more like an ad campaign.
It was an ad campaign designed to explain A. this is what the issue is (SOPA and PIPA suck) and B. this is what you ought to do if you think this is effed up (write/call your representatives and tell your friends to do the same) aimed at people (aka Americans) who don’t usually make a daily habit of writing to their representatives.
Really, you’re gunning for two target audiences. One, average everyday people who are already opponents of the bill and two, people who are neutral about it. The whole point of the blackout was call attention to the fact that we who oppose the bill ought to do something about it.
From the articles I’ve read this morning, it sounds like the ad campaign was the starts of a success. There were more people sending letters and making calls to the senators than there usually were. There have been more senators that have come out stating that they’re now opposed to the bill in response to their constituents telling them that “I care about this issue.”
Will it be enough to sway the vote to be “no” on these bills? Yet to be seen, but it sounds like things are moving in a positive direction. Keep the calls and letters coming.
In my opinion, it was a success. The main purpose of the campaign was to spread awareness. Nobody expected miracles. Nobody planned to occupy the White House because of the possibility that SOPA could pass. The blackouts and campaigns spread awareness of an issue that the mainstream media has been ignoring for far too long…and in that way, it was a success. Sure, millions of people Tweeted or posted Facebook statuses against SOPA without actually writing their congressmen or signing petitions, which seems counterproductive…but it’s better than nothing. So many people learned about SOPA, people who otherwise would have been unaware, because of the blackouts, the Tweets, and the statuses. It got people thinking, it got people talking. And according to this news story, SOPA is dead. http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dead-smith-pulls-bill/ So while nothing substantial was done and nobody did anything awesome like organize a mass protest, the information spread at a fascinating rate and the government was scared off. Mission accomplished. I do see your point, though. If the blackouts were unsuccessful then I definitely believe mass protests would have occurred all over the country. Remember what happened when the Egyptian government cut off their country’s Internet in order to quell the riots? It only made them stronger.
~Shane
http://www.500daysofshaneiferd.net
You showed up in my Spam box. You should get that checked out.
Okay you all win, I was super duper impatient and therefore wrong about everything. Thanks for all the counterpointing.
Love,
Tim