Here's one form of protest I'd like to see:<p>Assuming Google wants to take a significant stance against this bill, they're in a unique position to raise people's awareness of its awfulness. They could put some text on the Google homepage and/or a link to a protest page informing Americans about this threat. (Google might need to set up their own page, to avoid overwhelming an external site with traffic.) Other creative possibilities come to mind:<p>- Changing the "I'm feeling lucky" button to "I'm feeling very unlucky" and linking to the protest page<p>- Posting a terrifying, yet appealing Google Doodle that links and lures users to the protest page<p>- Announcing and then holding a scheduled, minute-long search outage, where all search traffic is redirected to the protest page (which would include an explanation of why searches were temporarily redirected)<p>Technically savvy users might be aware of SOPA and the threat it poses, yet the "average" American is probably unaware of what their elected representatives are doing to their digital future. They need to know, and hold their representatives accountable.<p>----<p>Disclaimer: I am not an American, but feel a need to speak up, given the huge effect U.S. law has on the whole Internet.
I'm worried that the approach I'm seeing to stopping this bill gives the impression that it's supporters are simply "protesters" who support online piracy.<p>The article on agilepanda is well written but the site at <a href="http://americancensorship.org/" rel="nofollow">http://americancensorship.org/</a> focuses on website blocking, jail time if you "stream a copyrighted work" and the very general threat of "Chaos for the Internet". It's the wrong approach IMO.<p>The decision makers, or our target market for this if you'd prefer, are congress, the senate and the president. There's an election coming up and we have real power we can wield. So here's my suggestion:<p>1. Make it crystal clear that replacing the DMCA with SOPA will kill many of the job creation machines coming out of Silicon Valley and the rest of the USA. It will prevent the creation of new businesses like Facebook that can only exist through user generated content and who generate billions in tax revenue and jobs for the US economy. If a representative supports this bill they are making it clear they don't support job creation in the USA.<p>2. Make it clear that this is not about online piracy, but about government control of a free communications medium. It is tantamount to the US government taking control of the country's newspapers and having the ability to selectively block the publication of editions they don't approve of.<p>3. Call your local congressman and senator and let them know that if they support SOPA, they don't support job creation in the USA and they oppose freedom of communication. Let them know two things: If they support SOPA you will not vote for them and you will encourage everyone you know to do the same. Secondly, let them know you will contact every major political donor in the area and make them aware of the representatives stance on the issue and how it endangers American business and innovation.<p>If we simply "protest" by shutting down our websites or sitting in the street, we risk getting lumped with the Occupy movement. However you may feel about that, what our politicians are most afraid of is losing their jobs and losing their funding. So lets hit them where it really hurts and take the power back.
I am very pessimistic, because it seems governments just won't stop trying to pass such laws (the same thing is going on in Germany where I live). If this time it fails, they will just try again, until eventually they succeed.<p>In Germany the law is pushed under the pretense of fighting child pornography. Some people who are against it are now being described in media as people who are against fighting child pornography - even by tech magazines that should have a better understanding.
It's great to see the EFF, the Free Software Foundation, and other big freedom fighters opposing this bill. (See <a href="http://americancensorship.org/" rel="nofollow">http://americancensorship.org/</a> ).<p>But are any of the big corporations fighting it? Google / YouTube? Microsoft? Apple? Come on guys! Step up! (or am I just missing their statements on this bad bill?)<p>I think a "Stop Censorship" black banner across the Google logo tomorrow would go a long way toward defeating this.
It's intensely disappointing to see politics conforming to its stereotype, and making short-sighted decisions about this. It's wonderful to see calls across the net, led by the EFF and others, to stop this craziness.<p>That said - I feel like we've been here before. Bills that blindly support control of ideas and technologies seem to waft their way into Washington on a regular basis, and each time we're angry and afraid and annoyed.<p>What can we do to stop this happening again?
I know everyone here is busy, but call your Representatives on the phone. <a href="http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml</a><p>Protesting is fine. Donating money to the EFF is fine. But truly angry phone calls by constituents are extremely powerful.
You know, they are trying to pass the same bill in France at the same time. I wouldn't doubt other countries are concerned as well.<p>Pretty much a censorship worldwide effort going on.
I'm not against trying to eliminate piracy, but I don't understand how any politicians can back this with a clear conscience. A bill that does things without having to be found guilty is an obvious anti-constitutional bill and should be destroyed immediately. We are innocent until proven guilty in this country, or so we are led to believe.
Google didn't help China censor the internet (as stated in the 1st paragraph). It makes it very hard to read the rest of the article after seeing this. In fact, Google pulled its services out of China because it wouldn't succumb to censorship requests. Google this --> "google pulls out of china"
> <i>On October 26, 2011, the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) was introduced in the House of Representatives...</i><p>Mmm, no. That may be the ultimate result (or maybe privacy died long ago) but SOPA stands for Stop Online <i>Piracy</i> Act, not <i>Privacy</i>...
Wow. I did not expect this blog post to blow up like this. I wish it was under less auspicious circumstances.<p>On a slightly related note, does anyone know how to fix the e-mail subscription widget in WordPress? I'm getting complaints that it is giving 'invalid e-mail' errors when people are adding valid e-mails.
I think the only way how this can be fixed it that they pass SOPA since western democracies seems to be broken beyond repair.<p>This bill will severely affect the very last growth engine in the US (that is internet) and the US (and the rest of the world) will sunk into even deeper recession. In other words, this bill will slow down or even prevent "paradigm shift in the economy" which is needed to start recovery of the global economy.<p>And this prolonged deep recession will fuel occupy WallStreet and similar movements and eventually, after a lot bad things (wars, riots, etc.), the new version of democracy will arise: the democracy were the constituents are people and not corporations.<p>This is my pessimistic view but history seems to be on my side :(
why not make a "one vote, one cause, one day" type of widget that can be easily added to any website( configurable to square, horizontal rectangle, vertical rectangle, etc...). Similar to the HN forum, you can create a 'cause' thread, design a logo/message for that cause, and the cause can be voted on. The highest ranked cause of that particular day is displayed for 24 hours, then reset back to 0 votes to even the playing field for other causes. Is anyone else starting to see my vision for this? Does this already exist?
A lot of great comments. No action. When it comes to issues of a vote (like this), im sorry to report - we've lost our say in the matter.<p>Some would say "that's why we elect people, to do this for us" don't you get it? Politicians aren't out to help you. They have their own agenda. Unless your padding their campaign coiffer, your falling on def ears.
The fundamental problem is that this is a part of a larger shift towards what is IMO an Unconstitutional government of prosecutors instead of a government of laws. These include mandatory sentencing guidelines, reductions in the discretion judges have in other areas, and the like. The idea is that the powers get shifted gradually onto prosecutors so they can go after bad guys, but that means eventually all of us can be prosecuted too.<p>In addition to the real problems with this act, try reading "Three Felonies A Day" by Harvey Silverglate (EFF and ACLU veterine, co-founder of FIRE)
> SOPA puts in provisions that allows the US to control the internet the same way that the PRC does in China.<p>I'm against SOPA, but the idea that it would permit the U.S. government, should it so desire, to set up Chinese-style censorship of the internet is nonsense on stilts. You can take any power of the government and theorize about what could happen if it ran unchecked: "What if they define talking about Occupy Wall Street to be piracy‽" "What if President Obama declared <i>you</i> an enemy combatant‽"<p>Our laws don't work that way. For one, when it ends up in the courts, they're going to read it as narrowly as needed to accomplish its purpose (obviously, in this case, copyright enforcement). If the law is stupidly written in such an over-broad way that it can't be balanced against other rights and interests, it will be thrown out. For another, we don't live in a one-party autocracy: We have deep cultural norms favoring rights and freedoms. That permeates not just the electorate, but the people elected and appointed to execute the laws. Obviously we disagree from time to time about the trade-offs to be made, but those very disagreements make it harder for some rogue executive to go off the rails; there's always someone else ready to take his place after the next election.<p>This is a long way of saying that hyperbole like this is never going to win you a policy argument.
It seems that what happened to wikileaks has become a blue print on how to deal with dissent. The demos allowed such monopolistic organisations such as visa and mastercard and the demos allowed the rest of what happened to wikileaks. We, the people, are to be blamed for not being willing to fight to retain our powers.
It is truly frightening to see how far-reaching authoritarian legislation like this can get fast-tracked into law. The same thing happened with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Patriot Act, and the Department of Homeland Security.<p>I can confidently predict this legislation will not be stopped.