• Reddit gets the ball rolling; schedules SOPA blackout for the 18th
    35 replies, posted
[url]http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/stopped-they-must-be-on-this-all.html[/url] [quote=the reddit team]The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation. We’ve seen some amazing activism organized by redditors at /r/sopa and across the reddit community at large. You have made a difference in this fight; and as we near the next stage, and after much thought, talking with experts, and hearing the overwhelming voices from the reddit community, we have decided that [b]we will be blacking out reddit on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC).[/b] Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis “kn0thing” Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics. We’re as addicted to reddit as the rest of you. Many of you stand with us against PIPA/SOPA, but we know support for a blackout isn’t unanimous. We're not taking this action lightly. We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it. Blacking out reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community. As we have seen yet again in the fight against PIPA/SOPA, the best ideas come from our community. We all have just over a week to figure out exactly what to do with our extra cycles on January 18th. Please join us in the discussion in the comments here and in /r/SOPA.[/quote]
jan 18th the death of lmao pics
12 hours? on a wednesday? what a joke.
Should do it on a Friday that'll get some attention.
[QUOTE=Wii60;34164366]jan 18th the death of lmao pics[/QUOTE] LMAO Pics has been dead since V.85.
Doesn't having an actual schedule for the blackout go against whatever point they're trying to prove? It should be sudden and indefinite.
And nothing of value was lost
[QUOTE=Sanius;34165536]Doesn't having an actual schedule for the blackout go against whatever point they're trying to prove? It should be sudden and indefinite.[/QUOTE] reddit is quite big. this was probably the most efficient notice for themselves
again, anyone who goes to reddit already knows what SOPA is. the point of a blackout is to inform people via a means of inconvenience. thus this is the point that is defeated by both [b]scheduling[/b] a blackout, and a site like reddit having it in the first place. companies like google and yahoo would have effective blackouts because of a much broader user base that has a much higher chance of being uninformed of SOPA. take all of the members that try to be edgier douchebag 4chan users, year old "new" jokes and stolen memes, and shitty unfunny "rage" comics and black out forever.
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;34165510]LMAO Pics has been dead since V.85.[/QUOTE] I haven't been here that long. Where the older threads really that good?
4chan too pls
[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;34166261]I haven't been here that long. Where the older threads really that good?[/QUOTE] no, they are just as bad
Hopefully Google and the others shall follow suite soon after.
12 hours? People [I]sleep[/I] for that long. Sometimes. Do something that'll be more than a minor inconvenience, shut it down for a week.
[QUOTE=Shibbey;34166310]12 hours? People [I]sleep[/I] for that long. Sometimes. Do something that'll be more than a minor inconvenience, shut it down for a week.[/QUOTE] whoa whoa hey, we're not trying to inconvenience the people who run the site and use ad revenue, it's to inconvenience the users that already know what SOPA is (in a thinly veiled attempt at a publicity stunt). a week would be FAAAR too long to make reddit look good AND keep the money rolling in.
In 1996 at the 'Turn the Web Black' event many pages were down for a whole day.
People complain LMAO threads suck, but why is it so popular then?
[QUOTE=Sprelle;34166405]People complain LMAO threads suck, but why is it so popular then?[/QUOTE] because retards on the internet just happen to be the loudest.
I'm just hoping that the fact that reddit has set a date means Google, Wikipedia and the rest of them will go for it too, rather than keep just talking about it
[QUOTE=Simski;34165830]And nothing of value was lost[/QUOTE] so edgy
[QUOTE=Shibbey;34166310]12 hours? People [I]sleep[/I] for that long. Sometimes. Do something that'll be more than a minor inconvenience, shut it down for a week.[/QUOTE] But people on Reddit never sleep.
The 12 hours [i]is[/i] essentially all day in the US, it's not 12 hours in the middle of the night or something. I was going to say that maybe it should be a few hours later as US reddit users probably peak in the evening, but as everyone's said most reddit users are already anti-SOPA, so all this will do is give them a single day on which they write to their senators or whatever, so it doesn't really matter
[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;34166261]I haven't been here that long. Where the older threads really that good?[/QUOTE] no they are the same quality
[QUOTE=Dysgalt;34164439]Should do it on a Friday that'll get some attention.[/QUOTE] Most people are out on Friday nights anywa- Oh wait its reddit
More good news! YouPorn has also added a small banner to stop SOPA!
[QUOTE=SilentOpp;34167530]More good news! YouPorn has also added a small banner to stop SOPA![/QUOTE] Well, that distracted me for longer than it should have.
Come on now. I'd understand if Google only went for 12 hours (actually, I'd expect 24 hours) since people actually rely on it for stuff, but one moderately-sized social board thing for 12 hours isn't going to do much. Blacking out isn't really worth it on a social website, especially one where they have a community already aware of and organizing stuff to stop SOPA. If Wikipedia shut down for a couple days, there'd be a national shitstorm. It'd be on the news, the radio, the phones, emergency broadcast systems, crowds of people rioting worldwide. Reddit could go down for maintenance for 12 hours, and probably has before. Reddit just isn't big enough for it to matter, and it's not the kind of website where it'd bring more awareness to SOPA. They probably already have a banner. That's plenty.
A Google blackout could work if temporary, like a blackout screen that allows you to continue, and a doodle about SOPA. I'd like to see that. It may not be necessary for Reddit to do it, but there's nothing wrong with it happening.
Great idea, don't schedule it. Just randomly do it, tell no one, just one day BOOM, no reddit for 24 hours.
maybe sopa aint so bad after all
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