Let me elaborate. Right now most politicians in the US are pretty out of touch with the Internet, that much we can all agree on. They hear that it's powerful, and they have young staff members saying how the Facebooks and the Twitters are necessary nowadays, but it's easy for the regular politician to not really buy into the hype. Despite that politicians (and nefarious people in influential positions) aren't really happy with the Internet and the whole open thing. Which is precisely why we're getting SOPA. Now, US politician attacks have thus far been limited media copyright and piracy, dabbling a little bit into privacy with the Facebook stuff. These are easy targets.
Now, if these sites take this kind of action, and has the kind of effect that you want - namely kicking these politicians out - you don't think every other politician is going to learn a very big lesson. And I'd hope that we plebes have also learned a lesson. When politicians/people in power have a "threat" that they are actually vulnerable to, they don't respect it and learn to co-exist. Instead they try to destroy, co-op, or otherwise remove it as a threat.
Maybe I'm being cynical/pessimistic, but given the history of humanity and the way people in power behave, I think I have reason to be.
You're right, SOPA is an attempt to destroy the internet. This is a flat-out attack on the internet as we know it, and I bet the middle east uprising had something to do with it.
And people's enthusiasm to fight the bill will shrink next time around too. It's just like how people donate to a cause a few times around, but eventually get tired of it.
I strongly hope this will happen, especially for the sake of non-US countries like mine.
There are a lot of comments saying that the blackout should spare non-US countries as it does not affect us. For those who feel this way, please read holmesworcesters comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3235431
Not only the USA is pressing hard to "control" the internet. Similar attempts will be made in the EU, in fact, one is already underway. See ACTA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agree...
If Wikipedia and hopefully Google would really replace their site for one day, it would raise the peoples awareness to such issues dramatically. And if some American politicians lose their jobs over it, some European politicians will keep that in mind when the next "Anti-Internet-Law" (of course it would never be called that way) is proposed.
But there's nothing we (non-US citizens) can do about it. Any noise we make means nothing to US politicians who are accountable only to the American people, and sometimes it looks not even to them.
Don't make the rest of us suffer for bad choices made by US voters.
To me, that's a small sacrifice that can be really rewarding.
Yes, so they can forthwith proceed to the lobbyist phase of their careers.
It could even be up for about 8 hours between around 9am and 5am within USA time (CST or MST, or any other).
That will never work; it was a bipartisan group. The only way things are done in American are if either a union or corporation pays for it, or if there's politician gain in attacking the other party.
If Google does it, this bill will die in a few hours and this shit will never come up again.
I hope that Twitter and Google have still enough spark to stand up for causes like that. This would finally provide an opportunity to use geo IP targeting for a meaningful purpose and directing people to take local action.
Pick it, Freeze it, Personalize it!
The business dealings of the rest of the world should not be collateral damage because of one nations political affairs.
So if you're going to use 'geo ip targetting' to make things local I'd suggest you use the same mechanism to give a free pass to those from other countries.
Maybe a worldwide blackout would discourage other governments from attempting something similar.
1. I'd go outside and do something -> But I can't use Facebook to coordinate anything.
2. I'd go out and eat -> I can't google places to eat, or google map where they are.
3. I'd just absorb information -> Oh wait... Twitter and Wikipedia are down.
Fml.
I felt so sad when I read these points and really hope you have a life without these services.
There are 100 million of other websites.
You can use a phone to coordinate something.
You can go out and eat at a place you went to before.
Facebook isn't just an information source, it is a communication medium. It would be like removing someone's email access for a day. For some, this might be a vacation, but for others, it would result in the failure of time-dependent project, which is not something that would win coverts to any cause.
- Youtube down, go on another video site or wait a day, who cares
- Google down, use bing/yahoo
- Wikipedia down, can likely find content in a cache (less easy but often very doable if Google is also down), if not the majority of Wikipedia users could wait a day and not have it do much harm. I use Wikipedia daily, but if I had to go a single day without it, it wouldn't really have a negative impact on me, just be slightly annoying. Or, find information on other sites, books, etc.
- Facebook down, there's no alternative. You can't just move over to Diaspora for a day. This is the only one where it being down for a day means you lose that functionality completely for a day.
Do people really only have one communications media? I find that with anyone that I actually talk to on a regular basis, I talk to regularly on at least 3 different communications media, often simultaneously. (I'm pretty fond of taking Facebook conversations offline to text message when I need to say something private, for instance, or to GChat when I want something a little more real-time.)
And if an important project would depend on somebody, you would probably bother to get a phone number or an email.
As I see it, disabling facebook for a day would be much less inconveniencing than say, disabling google's search engine (of course you could use alternative search engines, but none of them come close to google's result), or wikipedia (to which there's not much alternatives, really).
Facebook, google, youtube and wikipedia should take down their sites and replace them with a message about SOPA all on the same day. But it shouldn't end there. They should also personally attack each of the original progenators in the Senate/House of the bill. Their political careers need to end that day.
It's not enough to simply stop this bill. If they do, another will be enacted pretty soon with pretty much the same problems. Politicians need to understand that if they take on the internet and choose record labels over their own constituents they cannot expect support from their own political base.