FWIW, I think if Google, Twitter, and/or Facebook joined, they'd just put up custom messages (maybe with a link?) to an anti-SOPA page.

Of course, the question is, how do they define their political neutrality after this?

Google has a decent (not perfect) track record of arguing in support of free speech around the world. They're not politically neutral.

They admit there isn't such a thing as political neutrality, I'd hope.

It's not even a case of politics for these companies. They need to avoid regulation to survive.

The most important asset these companies have are highly skilled and sought after researchers. How appealing will Google be to work for if the projects they work on are designed to:

* prevent access to information that researchers require for their studies

* stall or prevent innovation

* favour established and inflexible industries over startups

* increase the amount of bureaucracy everyone has to deal with

* force problems into hiding rather than providing real solutions

I think not allowing SOPA and PIPA to pass, by itself defines neutrality. They just want the Internet the remain like it's always been - unaffected by politics.

"2) Perhaps a blackout will give some HNers the final push (and time) to make some phone calls to their representatives."

Besides, it'll give us something to do!

What's the probability that major websites join the movement?

One one hand a 24-hour outage would result in loss of a couple of bucks, but on the other, they in fact participated in the IPv6 day, so I'm not sure.

One of the proposals I saw was not a complete blackout but for a interstitial notice to be inserted for 30 seconds (that can't be cancelled). I prefer such a proposal because if you need to look up critical info, you still can.

If they do that, I will make an extention to get around it.

The only way to get a bad law stopped is to destroy the people behind it.

see 1) of grand-parent. And remember there are creative ways to do a blackout. Darken the page, map or Google Doodle. Something to raise awareness, and increase coverage. No need to pull the DNS or serve a blank black page

I think they can and should, but I think the IPv6 Day comparison is a bad one. It was a pretty small portion of users with broken IPv6 configurations/networks who were expected to be significantly inconvenienced, not the entire userbase.

>> 2) Perhaps a blackout will give some HNers the final push (and time) to make some phone calls to their representatives.

I think far more effective than a complete blackout would be requiring HNers contact their representatives before they can access HN content. Not sure how best to implement, but a email form that grants a token upon completion should be feasible (you'd need to decide how to handle non-US based IPs).

I have my doubts regarding the effectiveness of form emails on congresspeople, but I imagine those HNers who were going to call or write a more personal letter still will, with the added benefit of massive form emails from those less motivated to do so otherwise.

edit: grammar

This is exactly what HN should not do. Making a statement by having the site down for a day is one thing (although I'm also opposed to that, and I voted no in the poll), but actively forcing your users to help some cause even though they may have completely different opinion is something else entirely. I, for one, wouldn't want to participate on such a website. HN should support free thinking, not suppress it. I, as well as probably 95% of people here, am against SOPA. But if, for some reason, some of the HN users are pro SOPA, we should respect the fact that they have a different opinion on the matter and not force them to accept our views, even if we strongly disagree with them.

If people want to write to their congressperson, they should do that of their own accord, not because they're being pushed into doing that to access HN content.

Ironically, the reason this won't work is the same reason SOPA won't: proxies. HN is one of the largest gatherings of hackers anywhere; give us a break.

That's in addition to the fact that it's consensus that emails aren't worth a damn here.

And also the fact that it would take significant wasted effort to implement.

If PG did something like this, I'd lose all respect.

and what will people from other countries do?

What he said on all accounts.