Tumblr is hardly Google or Facebook, and they were able to generate massive grassroots political response, mainly through a banner. Any kind of coordinated action by major internet sites could generate the kind of response that I doubt Congress has ever seen before.

This would be absolutely great! EFF should coordinate some black-out-the-web day.

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!

Correction, the web is a lot larger than the United States and I'd really dislike it if internal political discussions of the United States were used to 'black out the web'.

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.

Agreed. Make it US only. That has the affect of highlighting how laws like this are a threat to the USA & the internet. i.e. tell the USA politicians that with laws like this, the internet might & associated companies might move out of USA.

The problem with that is, this would affect companies outside of the US as well. As long as nameservers are hosted here in the States, the USA will have the power to shut down any site, worldwide. Even if the nameservers are moved, the US would still have the power to block all US citizens from accessing the sites. Don't pretend that won't have a profound influence on the world.

Maybe a worldwide blackout would discourage other governments from attempting something similar.

I actually would not know what to do, if Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia all blacked out for a day. I just asked myself this, and I came up with several responses which all have problems:

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.

Please tell me that this was tongue in cheek talk.

I felt so sad when I read these points and really hope you have a life without these services.

Up vote from me. I thought it was funny. In fact, I might even know some people who would suffer through the cycle you described.

Seriously?

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.

If they haven't done it, I'm sure there's a good reason since I'm sure it's at least crossed their minds. Such a move would show what Google et al. are capable of, and that might scare more than just SOPA supporters.

Yeah, the most effective measure would just be a censored page with a call to action with a pointer to their local representatives. Calling your politicians is vastly effective, if you can get a small fraction of the country calling their reps. Just censoring the page isn't enough, you need to inspire action among the voters!