Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo! and Wikipedia plan coordinated blackout in protest of SOPA
138 replies, posted
Sauce: [url]http://techland.time.com/2012/01/05/sopa-what-if-google-facebook-and-twitter-went-offline-in-protest/[/url]
[quote=Time]Can you imagine a world without Google or Facebook? If plans to protest the potential passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) come to fruition, you won’t need to; those sites, along with many other well-known online destinations, will go temporarily offline as a taste of what we could expect from a post-SOPA Internet.
Companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo! and Wikipedia are said to be discussing a coordinated blackout of services to demonstrate the potential effect SOPA would have on the Internet, something already being called a “nuclear option” of protesting. The rumors surrounding the potential blackout were only strengthened by Markham Erickson, executive director of trade association NetCoalition, who told FoxNews that “a number of companies have had discussions about [blacking out services]” last week.
According to Erickson, the companies are well aware of how serious an act such a blackout would be:
This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position. The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.
The idea of an Internet blackout should seem familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention to the debate so far. In addition to a blackout already carried out by Mozilla, hacking group Anonymous proposed the same thing a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that sites replace their front pages with a statement protesting SOPA. That suggestion itself came a week after Jimmy Wales had asked Wikipedia users about the possibility of blacking out that site in protest of the bill.
(MORE: ‘Anonymous’ Blacks Out the Internet in Response to SOPA Debate)
As a way of drawing attention to the topic, it’s something that will definitely work. Just Google alone going dark would cause havoc online, but the idea of it happening at the same time as Facebook, Twitter et al. follow suit seems almost unimaginable.
The question then becomes how to translate the inevitable confusion and outrage from those who don’t know what SOPA is into activism. The key, I assume, lies in the execution of the blackout: Will the sites that voluntarily go down be entirely unavailable or will they follow the Anonymous-proposed model of replacing the front page with a statement explaining what is going on, why and how users can best become involved in the discussion? If the sites do go entirely dark, is the hope that the resulting outrage will be enough to fuel news stories about the reason behind the decision? And that users will not transfer their frustration to the sites themselves, as opposed to the bill they’re protesting?
The fact that Facebook and Twitter are both said to be considering taking part in the blackout is simultaneously heartening and worrying. The former because, well, they’re standing up for what they collectively believe in — and that’s a good thing. But the latter because the lack of availability for social media on the proposed blackout day feels like it’s giving up the best chance to harness the frustration and energy people will feel about the temporary loss of the Internet as they know it, and a great possibility to focus and direct that energy into productive activism against SOPA. Then again, it may take losing Facebook and Twitter to really drive home how dramatically SOPA could affect the Internet.
All of this may come to nothing, of course. The companies may decide not to black out their sites and find other ways to protest SOPA. That could be for the best; collectively closing down the most trafficked sites on the Internet to prove a point will certainly garner a lot of attention, but the effects it’ll have beyond that (and the reactions it’ll cause as a result) are difficult to predict and could easily end up causing a backlash against the sites responsible at a time when they least want it. But still … just try to imagine an Internet without Google, Facebook or Yahoo. Even for a day. Almost makes you want it to happen, just to make people realize how reliant we are on the Internet as we know it now, doesn’t it? [/quote]
I can't see them continuing with this act if this happens.
If they're really planning on doing this, I'm behind 'em completely.
Mark Zuckerburg does something good.txt
They're still discussing it; no "plans" have been made as of yet.
Maybe someone will finally use bing...
This needs to happen.
Even to see it happen and people freaking out would be great.
This would be a pretty big dent in the anti-SOPA community. More power to em'
[QUOTE=Shrapnel :3;34095949]Maybe someone will finally use bing...[/QUOTE]
Bing probably wouldn't work since it was proven they were regurgitating a LOT of results from Google.
I hope google also shuts down youtube during the blackout.
That will draw a lot of attention as well.
Oh fuck no, please don't go google. I have a god damn report I need to work on. And MS Word doesn't work anymore.
Enough talk, I actually want to see this. It would be amazing if they actually went through with it.
But this is a good fight for Anti SOPA. Blackout major sites, especially Bing.
[QUOTE=Shrapnel :3;34095949]Maybe someone will finally use bing...[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4[/media]
They've been talking about this for a while now
Get on with it
[QUOTE=Rocko's;34095986]Oh fuck no, please don't go google. I have a god damn report I need to work on. And MS Word doesn't work anymore.[/QUOTE]
Here's a contingency plan in terms of wikipedia. (the UK pages without images is 7 gigs compressed)
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia[/url]
Also, download libré office if you are referring to google docs.
Awesome. This will pack a huge punch, especially to those politicians who have kids. "Mom, it says Facebook has shut down due to some law called SOPA, you know anything about that?"
Do it. The press coverage will be amazing and get SOPA destroyed overnight
[QUOTE=smurfy;34096024]They've been talking about this for a while now
Get on with it[/QUOTE]
Shutting down huge companies for an entire day isn't gona happen just like that.
We should get Valve behind this too.
[QUOTE=Terminutter;34096054]Here's a contingency plan in terms of wikipedia. (the UK pages without images is 7 gigs compressed)
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia[/url]
Also, download libré office if you are referring to google docs.[/QUOTE]
This will work, I'll just use OpenOffice, even though I hate it a lot.
I hope SOPA falls because of this, without Google and Wikipedia, the internets largest resources, then the internet will just collapse instantly.
Yes.
[QUOTE=iwirthless;34096096]We should get Valve behind this too.[/QUOTE]
I would love to see a Steam Blackout. No store and community, just forced offline mode.
Go for it. We can live a day without it, and if they put up a landing page directing users on why it's going on and what to do about it Congress will literally suffocate under the tons upon tons of hate mail that comes pouring in.
This NEEDS to happen. It's a brilliant move by those companies, and it is exactly what the public needs to see.
[QUOTE=iwirthless;34096096]We should get Valve behind this too.[/QUOTE]
Steam is down all the time anyways, so people wouldn't notice.
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;34096140]This NEEDS to happen. It's a brilliant move by those companies, and it is exactly what the public needs to see.[/QUOTE]
Yeah. It's the only way to wake people up.
A lot of people who have taken the time to reach out to people and educate them about the danger of SOPA have said that people just don't want to listen because the news are too uncomfortable and they'll just reply "I'll worry about it when it happens". Well let's see their reaction after the blackout.
That said, I wonder how long it'll be. A week or two ? I also wonder if the pro-SOPA people will use it to their advantage and push the bill forward during the blackout.
I remember hearing about this a few weeks ago and fb wasn't in on it, now that they are people are actually going to give a shit.
Politicians' thought process during the blackout:
[I]*Blackout begins, all major sites go down*[/I]
"Let's see... Can't update Facebook, can't search with Google... Maybe SOPA won't work out after all."
[I]*Blackout ends, all major sites come back up*[/I]
"Oh look, they're back. That was it? Huh, that wasn't so bad. Let's pass it into law!"
As long as it only occurs to Americans
[QUOTE=iwirthless;34096096]We should get Valve behind this too.[/QUOTE]
Get CS, TF2, and CSS down for like a week and when someone tries to open one of them the games menu has been replaced with a message about SOPA
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