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SOPA Opponents May Go Nuclear

221 points by thematt 15y ago

joezydeco 15y ago
Are we talking about just painting those websites black, or turning completely off for the day with a directed message telling you where to contact your representatives? The latter option would truly be "nuclear", but would Google/Facebook/et al put up with a day without those ad revenues? Would it be worth the loss in the long run?
- gecko 15y ago
  Well...if I were one of those sites, and I really believed that SOPA was an existential threat--which I think is a very reasonable position for any of those sites--then a day's loss of revenue is absolutely worth it, because the alternative is no, or greatly reduced, revenue. I'd take a known loss of ~1/365th (~.3%) of revenues over a probable loss of 100% of revenues any day of the week.
  - joezydeco 15y ago
    Actually, when you think about it like a Googler, you don't even need to lose 1/365th of your revenue. You only need to hit districts where those representatives are voting for SOPA. You can also hit people once, then resume normal business. Maybe do it for an hour or two at a time. You can feather out the carpet bombs. [Edit] I meant targeting the reps that are voting for SOPA, not against it.
    - mjwalshe 15y ago
      Probably not a good idea when your in the antitrust firing line ask ATT and IBM how that turned out for them.
    - Benjo 15y ago
      Alternatively, they just spend more money to reelect those politicians until their positions switch. It's not like SOPA proponents won over those constituents to win the support of their reps. Or is this supposed to be a principled stand?
  - scarmig 15y ago
    I hate SOPA, but I've got to wonder how much of this is actually driven by concern for the bottom line. Hollywood and Big Media are very happy to work with established, institutional partners. Indeed, the types of partnerships that'd be formed, backed up by federal force, would serve to drive off potential competitors. Would it really damage advertising revenues that much? If the fear is that Google would be hit by large lawsuits from some twelve year old posting a music video on YouTube, or that Facebook would be liable for a link to it, I expect that media conglomerates would be happy to give de facto immunity, so long as Google or whoever is willing to put Viacom's commissars in charge of which content is allowed and which isn't. Obviously it's good that Google is on the side of angels on this, but if it's actually in their best interest is a relevant angle for analysis. It also would tell us how hard they're actually willing to fight to block SOPA.
    - mquander 15y ago
      The law doesn't say, Viacom may make a claim on your content, so make a deal with Viacom and you're golden. It says that any rights-holder can make a claim on your content. There's a big problem with patent trolls right now making totally frivolous claims based on patents that they bought up, right? And yet many companies are paying oodles of dollars to pay them off and to try to avoid future trouble from essentially ridiculous patents. I would expect exactly the same thing to arise under SOPA, but with ridiculous copyright claims instead of ridiculous patents. Entities with no actual concern about their IP will start knocking at the door looking for shakedown money when it allegedly gets posted on Youtube.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - flueedo 15y ago
      I think concern for us(the bottom line) isn't indeed the real drive. Roughly speaking the business of Google is the Internet. If the internet thrives, they thrive. That's one of the reasons why they don't need to treat Mozilla as a competitor. So, this bill could hurt their business model, at least here in the US.
    - fpgeek 15y ago
flueedo 15y ago
Nuclear is a excellent metaphor. Because Google, Twitter and Amazon actively doing something similar to what Tumblr did(instigating their users to protest) would be too extreme. Tumblr has only a few million users; Google and Amazon together have much, much more. I can hardly wrap my mind around the implications and ramifications of such a move. I don't think they're gonna do it. I think they're gonna choose a subtler strategy.
- p4bl0 15y ago
  I don't understand your reasonning. Why do you think it is "too extreme"? Politics is struggle. You can't win if you don't fight. First it's SOPA, and if it passes then what? The thing here is that nuclear is actually a poor metaphor. Because it would imply that the menace of Google, Amazon etc. doing something similar to what Tumblr did would be enough. It's not. Politicians don't understand the web, that's why they want SOPA. They surely did not understand nuclear weapons before a few of them had tragically been used. That said, I also think that it would be preferable that big internet companies do not get to do what is described in the story. But not for the same reason as you seem to think. Here is my sweet dream: What I would like is for people to go on strike and to get down in the streets until SOPA is dead. Because that way politicians and all those who/which are backing SOPA knows what the web is capable of, without the web needing big private companies to back people up. Because some companies may be on the web's side for now, but everybody should keep in mind that these are companies, which mainly want/need to make profit. For this fight and for now the interests are the same so it's okay to use them as objective allies. It's never okay to really depend on them.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
  I think they're going to talk a lot, then do essentially nothing and knuckle under. Because at the end of the day these things always destroy the small and defenseless. The large and moneyed won't be harmed. The government will never take down Facebook, not for ten minutes. What this really is, is legalization of asymmetric warfare, and while a minority of tech/content companies might prefer things the way they are, they'll prosper just fine after SOPA is passed. This will only ever existentially affect the small.
johns 15y ago
Hopefully the threat is enough. If I'm Google I'm strategically going to leak out plans (memos, design mocks, etc) for a blackout to see if it makes a difference without actually having to do it. They just have to be ready to back it up if it's not enough.
barrkel 15y ago
Taking a devil's advocate perspective: this would be perceived as corporate blackmail, an attempted takeover of the democratic process by industry. Even though such an approach may have plenty of support, especially in our communities, I wonder if it wouldn't turn off non-technical moderates in a much bigger way.
- jmvoodoo 15y ago
  "an attempted takeover of the democratic process by industry" I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the attempt happened a long time ago, and it was completely successful. There is also precedent for something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest
  - barrkel 15y ago
    (1) It was a different time, when almost everyone online was technical; (2) it didn't work then like protesting SOPA today would be intended to, since the act passed back then; and (3) that act was ruled unconstitutional by the courts, rather than by democratic action motivated by protest. So I think that example is irrelevant in almost every way. (As to whether congress was taken over by industry; of course I agree with you. I'm not in favour of SOPA, after all. I'm just wargaming the potential scenario of a protest like this today.)
- jballanc 15y ago
  The problem with SOPA is that the vast, vast majority of non-technical moderates are completely unaware of it. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen this large of a disconnect between the tech community and "everyone else". If you don't believe me, next time you run to the supermarket or the drug store, just politely say to your cashier, "Excuse me, I was just wondering if you knew what SOPA is?"
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    She'd send you to the international aisle for some mexican soup.
gjulianm 15y ago
Never thought about Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc, going black and telling you to contact representatives. But it would be not "nuclear", it would be "6000km diameter meteorite". Think about it: almost 100% of people connected to the Internet would be concerned about SOPA. Really, really concerned. I don't think neither representatives nor Hollywood industry would support this pressure.
- coreyrecvlohe 15y ago
  Forget meteorite, it would be a Suprnova.
jxcole 15y ago
I think that the general suggestion of a more tepid response (that is, blacking the background of google/facebook but leaving everything else usable), would probably be completely ineffective. Most people are incredibly unconcerned with things on the internet that they might have to read, so if an ad comes up or something that you can click through, people will click through without reading it because they've been to Forbes enough times to have that behavior trained into them. Unless they commit to a total blackout of their usual features, you can expect very little response from users.
- TWAndrews 15y ago
  The response rate could be hundredths of a percent of users and still generate a massive number of emails/calls/faxes.
  - jxcole 15y ago
    You are absolutely correct. However, representatives are not idiots and I think that it's likely that they will be aware, just like you are, that despite the incredible number of faxes/calls/emails they receive the number of people who actually care are likely to be only hundredths of a percent. Since it is unlikely that the politician will lose an election due to hundredths of a percent of a drop in their ratings, you can bet they will just turn their phones off for a few days rather than actually changing their political stance. Keep in mind a company like Fox or Universal is in a position to offer them what amounts to free commercials on their networks. That is what this potential black out is competing against. Update: I was unaware of this rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule. However, studios could still offer things like interviews for candidates that it doesn't offer to other candidates, which may not exactly be a commercial, but would have a similar effect.
    - fennecfoxen 15y ago
      Ah, the good old equal-time rule. Because if the media could do whatever they wanted with their air time, that would be some sort of "freedom of the press" and we can't have that. It might be "unfair". </bitterness>
mike-cardwell 15y ago
If Google and Facebook are going to start using their websites to influence politics, maybe it's time for companies to start lobbying them instead of Washington directly.
- Joakal 15y ago
  Very unlikely; the SOPA bill will impose significant costs to their operations compared to the reputation loss of publicly political to protect their bottom line.
leeoniya 15y ago
what would happen if Google, Bing (and by association Yahoo), made all SOPA-supporting properties disappear from organic and ad-sponsored searches. my bet - the bill would be be dead within days, they have no obligation to service SOPA supporters.
- JeffL 15y ago
  While that sounds cool, such blatant non-neutrality from search engines sounds almost as scary to me as what they're protesting.
  - Joakal 15y ago
    The alternative is the bill making such companies non-neutral, for copyright industry interests.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Agreed. "Free speech (so long as we agree with it)" is exactly what we're opposing, here.
    - kevinh 15y ago
      What we're (or at least I) am opposing is government regulation of free speech. Corporations are allowed to regulate speech on sites that they own.
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
        Fair enough. We can at least agree, I hope, that tactically it would be a poor choice.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    That ended when they passed the DMCA.
Joakal 15y ago
Watch out for movement fatigue. The Internet Filter/Censorship blackout happened in Australia; it was partially successful in the filter not being mandatory. But the biggest ISPs are pushing filters on their customers 'voluntarily' with government money (Capitalist take: Internet Censored cheaper than Internet Freedom) taking after UK. Unrelated to blackout, but the other big ISPs not forcing the filter on customers decided to police users for copyright infringement. Such unrelenting copyright industry anti-Internet parasites.
DennisP 15y ago
Hollywood has political power far beyond its financial power because of its ability to influence voters. The internet industry has that power too, but it's afraid to use it. If Google and Facebook were to demonstrate that power once, on an issue that most of their users will agree with, the industry would get a lot more respect in D.C.
- statictype 15y ago
  Your comment made the line "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!" run through my head. More seriously, Facebook alone doing a single-day blackout would be powerful. I guess its a question of how much money they'd be losing by doing it.
  - maqr 15y ago
    It might be a question of how much money they would lose by not doing it. SOPA enforcement would be insanely expensive for a site with as much user generated/linked content as Facebook.
    - sgk284 15y ago
      The thing to keep in mind is that SOPA, if I understand correctly, only applies to foreign entities. As it stands, FB won't be impacted substantially by the legislation. That said, it'd be in their best interest to stop this now, because even if this doesn't impact them, slowly but surely the laws will be amended to apply to everyone.
      - buff-a 15y ago
        Foreign entities don't have Facebook pages?
        dangrossman 15y ago
        Foreign entities refers to the website operators. SOPA creates new rights of action against site operators and their domains, not individual URLs.
feriksen 15y ago
In the short term: instant win. really. as stated by others in the thread, practically 100% of the internet start their days in one of these core services, google, facebook, yahoo, tumblr, twitter, etc. In the long run though, dangerous move, as every politician alive in every(!) nation would start work on curtailing the obvious power in these companies hands demonstrated by such an event. but win? hell yes. no question. Someone likened it with a "6k km meteor", aka world-killer, and that was probably spot on. On one hand I would love seing it, and think of how powerless all these politicians would feel, but fear indeed the results further down the line. politicians like power...
- ori_b 15y ago
  An alternative outcome is that they would start realizing who they had to suck up to in order to get power, and that it's not JUST media companies any more.
mwsherman 15y ago
I’d like to see something with more teeth, and less potential for antagonizing disinterested users (which most are). I fear that this would satisfy us emotionally more than it would effect change. Which is an occasion for more creative thinking. The most important point, which the article mentions, is that Google et al have a direct relationship with users, and goodwill. It needs to speak to users in non-strident tones, and engage on a level that users might care about. In turn, it must engage those users to do something that politicos will actually fear. Perhaps something like “click here and Google will donate $1 to [politician’s rival]”. Or, Google simply gives $1 to an effective organization for every unique SOPA search.
- zem 15y ago
  the problem is that the users aren't disinterested - they're uninterested. blacking out google and facebook would go a long way towards changing that.
colinprince 15y ago
Upvoted for some honest-to-god, decent insightful writing. (not something I normally expect when I click a cnet link)
RobertKohr 15y ago
Join in the Google Bomb of GoDaddy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393177 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393177
- rhizome 15y ago
  Actually it's the link farms and spammers who should be linking to GoDaddy rather than giving free pub to Namecheap. I can't link to every provider on the right side of this issue.
snowwrestler 15y ago
Nuclear war isn't the sort of thing that usually produces winners. I have a hard time seeing Google in particular starting a nuclear war over this. They value relationships with big content providers and have done a lot to build them. If a drastic action leads content providers to pull out of YouTube, Google Music, Google TV, etc., it would hurt Google quite a bit. Users care a lot less about YouTube than they care about what they can watch on YouTube, and the most popular videos are "official" music videos. It is rare that huge consumer companies allow legislative fights to spill over and impact their core business. It usually just annoys customers rather than generating any sort of meaningful grassroots bump.
- ypcx 15y ago
  Where would they go if they pulled out of YouTube etc.? Do you think they are there because they like Google? No matter what product you have, if you don't market it, it's the same as if you didn't have it. Marketing is Google's other name, they are a marketing giant. There's an awful lot of extremely talented people floating in the wild, who are not under mega-labels because the mega-label business model only allows a handful few. Imagine what could Google do with its marketing power and this available talent - they can literally create a new mainstream music industry almost overnight. Regarding annoying of customers - when fascism was on the rise in Germany, lot of people should have been annoyed but they were left in ignorance, and that's why eventually Hitler succeeded in the takeover, before turning the country to ashes. When your government breaks the law, and then under the disguise of copyright infringement they take down any website that reports about it, the last working piece of the responsibility feedback loop is completely destroyed, the citizen is fucked, and the country eventually ends in ashes. That is the true danger of SOPA, and that is what SOPA is all about.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  I agree there would be repercussions for YouTube and Google Music, I'll note that content providers have already pulled out of / are actively blocking Google TV, so Google has little to lose on that front. I'll also say that I think the consequences for YouTube are smaller than you think."Official" videos may be the most popular videos on YouTube on an individual basis, but I strongly suspect that, as a group, user-generated videos drive the majority of YouTube usage, even though very few user-generated videos are extremely popular individually.
danenania 15y ago
Why leave it to the big guys to take the initiative? Larger players only jumped aboard the godaddy boycott after the grassroots push gained enough momentum that they'd look bad if they sat on their hands. We should take the same approach here. Set a day, then gather as many companies and individuals as possible who will pledge to shut down their sites and replace them with anti-SOPA information and calls to action. Once momentum is established, then call out the big corporations and challenge them to stand up for their supposed values alongside the rest of the web. They will find this much more difficult to decline.
- jbjohns 15y ago
  So you want little guys who are struggling for market share to risk it all for a fight they may not win in the end (and if they even survive, this losing stance could be held against them)? Companies like Google and FB could shut their entire US sites off for a week and wouldn't lose more than a few percentage of market share if anything at all.
  - danenania 15y ago
    Maybe so, but the big companies don't have sincere values beyond financial self-interest. They'll only act if pushed into feeling that their credibility is at stake. Otherwise they'll pursue more conservative paths that benefit them and other large entities exclusively, like lobbying for carve-outs and exemptions, to the detriment of everyone else. Individuals and small companies actually have the ability and willingness to act decisively according to real principles and moral values. It may be unfair for the little guys to shoulder the burden at first, but the sad truth is that if we don't, no one else will.
Anechoic 15y ago
Wouldn't this just invite retaliations in the form of a massive deluge of pro-SOPA television commercials? There are a lot of folks who use Facebook/Google/Wikipedia, but I'd bet there are many more who watch TV, especially among the demographic who will fall for the "we gotta stop the pirates or the terrorists/drug dealers/child molesters will win!" tactic. I know there is a pro-SOPA commerical going around, but given that I've only seen it aired once, it doesn't seem
coreyrecvlohe 15y ago
Huge play if they pull this off. This could really set the stage for increased leverage as we move into 2012. There must be a show of strength that strikes at the core of the D.C. machine. This isn't just over people downloading Ashton Kutcher movies, this is about taking down startups that are in direct competition with the distribution players, this is about going for the juglar and using Congress to pick winners. Google, Facebook, Ebay, Twitter, Paypal, Wikipedia and everyone else needs to step their game up; this is going to be a long haul.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
That's not nuclear. Nuclear would be: you vote for SOPA you will be blacklisted from ever using google, gmail, facebook, twitter, aws. Your campaign, personal, and business websites will never appear in google searches. Your books will never be sold on amazon. You will never be allowed to have a google account, upload videos to youtube, or own an android device. That is nuclear.
- nirvana 15y ago
  And call me unreasonable if you like, but if this thing passes, and they haven't gone nuclear (or some variation thereof), as far as I'm concerned, they are endorsing it. There are a few times when you have to take a stand. This is one of them. None of the airlines opposed the TSA like they should have, and I stopped flying american carriers as a result, except where there's literally no other option. I won't have a problem ending all association with Google, Amazon, Facebook or Twitter.
  - statictype 15y ago
    How about Apple and Microsoft and Adobe? And 37signals and foursquare and Dropbox and AirBnB and literally every other company that has an internet presence and doesn't go nuclear to support this bill?
    - ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
      Start a new Internet.
      - oozcitak 15y ago
        Is that impossible? Isn't it just a matter of running a root nameserver for the new internet?
        baddox 15y ago
        It depends what you mean by "new internet," and how much control the government eventually takes over the actual hardware routing the current Internet. Even If the government owns every ISP, you could take part in encrypted communication, and I don't think there's any way for them to stop that. At the absolute worst, you could go back to basics, and just use the plain old telephone system to dial into known servers.
lhnz 15y ago
In the fantasy land of my mind, I'd prefer it if some of those large companies could cut deals with other governments to create pro-Internet laws and then move their headquarters abroad. If SOPA is passed the US deserves no less than total decimation of their position as a technological leader. Who is John Galt?
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
I wonder how effective it might be, in addition, for major sites to point directly to user generated content on their sites, posted by both well knowns and unknowns, and assert that that specific content would cause trouble for both the poster and the site. Bonus points if someone points to all infringing content on members of Congress sites, a la the recent Congressional torrent torrent.
plink 15y ago
Google, Apple, Facebook, etc., should just buy these media giants. The RIAA and MPAA would become like cockroaches ripe for stomping upon. That would be the real and permanent nuclear option.
andrewflnr 15y ago
Couldn't they just devote, say, half the above-the-fold screen space to a banner about SOPA for a couple days? Definitely gets people's attention, especially if coordinated across the internet, without pissing them off too much. It would link to a page that names names and gives action steps for users. Is there a compelling reason they couldn't do this or that it wouldn't work?
rwhitman 15y ago
There are far more elegant, insidious ways to destroy SOPA using the powers that SOPA opponents possess than something as cheap as a blackout. I do like the idea of PR hype surrounding the threat of blackout though. Just publicizing the potential threat of the 'nuclear option' in the press for a week should be enough to get congress to back off.
zwilliamson 15y ago
SOPA is all over hacker news and other tech feeds, but I have seen nothing on the television news outlets (CNN, FoxNews). Obviously, they want to see this slip through... they are all owned by big media business who are probably supporters.

221 points by thematt 15y ago

Are we talking about just painting those websites black, or turning completely off for the day with a directed message telling you where to contact your representatives? The latter option would truly be "nuclear", but would Google/Facebook/et al put up with a day without those ad revenues? Would it be worth the loss in the long run?

gecko 15y ago
Well...if I were one of those sites, and I really believed that SOPA was an existential threat--which I think is a very reasonable position for any of those sites--then a day's loss of revenue is absolutely worth it, because the alternative is no, or greatly reduced, revenue. I'd take a known loss of ~1/365th (~.3%) of revenues over a probable loss of 100% of revenues any day of the week.
- joezydeco 15y ago
  Actually, when you think about it like a Googler, you don't even need to lose 1/365th of your revenue. You only need to hit districts where those representatives are voting for SOPA. You can also hit people once, then resume normal business. Maybe do it for an hour or two at a time. You can feather out the carpet bombs. [Edit] I meant targeting the reps that are voting for SOPA, not against it.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    Probably not a good idea when your in the antitrust firing line ask ATT and IBM how that turned out for them.
  - Benjo 15y ago
    Alternatively, they just spend more money to reelect those politicians until their positions switch. It's not like SOPA proponents won over those constituents to win the support of their reps. Or is this supposed to be a principled stand?
- scarmig 15y ago
  I hate SOPA, but I've got to wonder how much of this is actually driven by concern for the bottom line. Hollywood and Big Media are very happy to work with established, institutional partners. Indeed, the types of partnerships that'd be formed, backed up by federal force, would serve to drive off potential competitors. Would it really damage advertising revenues that much? If the fear is that Google would be hit by large lawsuits from some twelve year old posting a music video on YouTube, or that Facebook would be liable for a link to it, I expect that media conglomerates would be happy to give de facto immunity, so long as Google or whoever is willing to put Viacom's commissars in charge of which content is allowed and which isn't. Obviously it's good that Google is on the side of angels on this, but if it's actually in their best interest is a relevant angle for analysis. It also would tell us how hard they're actually willing to fight to block SOPA.
  - mquander 15y ago
    The law doesn't say, Viacom may make a claim on your content, so make a deal with Viacom and you're golden. It says that any rights-holder can make a claim on your content. There's a big problem with patent trolls right now making totally frivolous claims based on patents that they bought up, right? And yet many companies are paying oodles of dollars to pay them off and to try to avoid future trouble from essentially ridiculous patents. I would expect exactly the same thing to arise under SOPA, but with ridiculous copyright claims instead of ridiculous patents. Entities with no actual concern about their IP will start knocking at the door looking for shakedown money when it allegedly gets posted on Youtube.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - flueedo 15y ago
    I think concern for us(the bottom line) isn't indeed the real drive. Roughly speaking the business of Google is the Internet. If the internet thrives, they thrive. That's one of the reasons why they don't need to treat Mozilla as a competitor. So, this bill could hurt their business model, at least here in the US.
  - fpgeek 15y ago

flueedo 15y ago

Nuclear is a excellent metaphor. Because Google, Twitter and Amazon actively doing something similar to what Tumblr did(instigating their users to protest) would be too extreme. Tumblr has only a few million users; Google and Amazon together have much, much more. I can hardly wrap my mind around the implications and ramifications of such a move. I don't think they're gonna do it. I think they're gonna choose a subtler strategy.

p4bl0 15y ago
I don't understand your reasonning. Why do you think it is "too extreme"? Politics is struggle. You can't win if you don't fight. First it's SOPA, and if it passes then what? The thing here is that nuclear is actually a poor metaphor. Because it would imply that the menace of Google, Amazon etc. doing something similar to what Tumblr did would be enough. It's not. Politicians don't understand the web, that's why they want SOPA. They surely did not understand nuclear weapons before a few of them had tragically been used. That said, I also think that it would be preferable that big internet companies do not get to do what is described in the story. But not for the same reason as you seem to think. Here is my sweet dream: What I would like is for people to go on strike and to get down in the streets until SOPA is dead. Because that way politicians and all those who/which are backing SOPA knows what the web is capable of, without the web needing big private companies to back people up. Because some companies may be on the web's side for now, but everybody should keep in mind that these are companies, which mainly want/need to make profit. For this fight and for now the interests are the same so it's okay to use them as objective allies. It's never okay to really depend on them.
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
I think they're going to talk a lot, then do essentially nothing and knuckle under. Because at the end of the day these things always destroy the small and defenseless. The large and moneyed won't be harmed. The government will never take down Facebook, not for ten minutes. What this really is, is legalization of asymmetric warfare, and while a minority of tech/content companies might prefer things the way they are, they'll prosper just fine after SOPA is passed. This will only ever existentially affect the small.

johns 15y ago

Hopefully the threat is enough. If I'm Google I'm strategically going to leak out plans (memos, design mocks, etc) for a blackout to see if it makes a difference without actually having to do it. They just have to be ready to back it up if it's not enough.

barrkel 15y ago

Taking a devil's advocate perspective: this would be perceived as corporate blackmail, an attempted takeover of the democratic process by industry. Even though such an approach may have plenty of support, especially in our communities, I wonder if it wouldn't turn off non-technical moderates in a much bigger way.

jmvoodoo 15y ago
"an attempted takeover of the democratic process by industry" I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the attempt happened a long time ago, and it was completely successful. There is also precedent for something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest
- barrkel 15y ago
  (1) It was a different time, when almost everyone online was technical; (2) it didn't work then like protesting SOPA today would be intended to, since the act passed back then; and (3) that act was ruled unconstitutional by the courts, rather than by democratic action motivated by protest. So I think that example is irrelevant in almost every way. (As to whether congress was taken over by industry; of course I agree with you. I'm not in favour of SOPA, after all. I'm just wargaming the potential scenario of a protest like this today.)
jballanc 15y ago
The problem with SOPA is that the vast, vast majority of non-technical moderates are completely unaware of it. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen this large of a disconnect between the tech community and "everyone else". If you don't believe me, next time you run to the supermarket or the drug store, just politely say to your cashier, "Excuse me, I was just wondering if you knew what SOPA is?"
- dangrossman 15y ago
  She'd send you to the international aisle for some mexican soup.

gjulianm 15y ago

Never thought about Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc, going black and telling you to contact representatives. But it would be not "nuclear", it would be "6000km diameter meteorite". Think about it: almost 100% of people connected to the Internet would be concerned about SOPA. Really, really concerned. I don't think neither representatives nor Hollywood industry would support this pressure.

coreyrecvlohe 15y ago
Forget meteorite, it would be a Suprnova.

jxcole 15y ago

I think that the general suggestion of a more tepid response (that is, blacking the background of google/facebook but leaving everything else usable), would probably be completely ineffective. Most people are incredibly unconcerned with things on the internet that they might have to read, so if an ad comes up or something that you can click through, people will click through without reading it because they've been to Forbes enough times to have that behavior trained into them. Unless they commit to a total blackout of their usual features, you can expect very little response from users.

TWAndrews 15y ago
The response rate could be hundredths of a percent of users and still generate a massive number of emails/calls/faxes.
- jxcole 15y ago
  You are absolutely correct. However, representatives are not idiots and I think that it's likely that they will be aware, just like you are, that despite the incredible number of faxes/calls/emails they receive the number of people who actually care are likely to be only hundredths of a percent. Since it is unlikely that the politician will lose an election due to hundredths of a percent of a drop in their ratings, you can bet they will just turn their phones off for a few days rather than actually changing their political stance. Keep in mind a company like Fox or Universal is in a position to offer them what amounts to free commercials on their networks. That is what this potential black out is competing against. Update: I was unaware of this rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule. However, studios could still offer things like interviews for candidates that it doesn't offer to other candidates, which may not exactly be a commercial, but would have a similar effect.
  - fennecfoxen 15y ago
    Ah, the good old equal-time rule. Because if the media could do whatever they wanted with their air time, that would be some sort of "freedom of the press" and we can't have that. It might be "unfair". </bitterness>

mike-cardwell 15y ago

If Google and Facebook are going to start using their websites to influence politics, maybe it's time for companies to start lobbying them instead of Washington directly.

Joakal 15y ago
Very unlikely; the SOPA bill will impose significant costs to their operations compared to the reputation loss of publicly political to protect their bottom line.

leeoniya 15y ago

what would happen if Google, Bing (and by association Yahoo), made all SOPA-supporting properties disappear from organic and ad-sponsored searches. my bet - the bill would be be dead within days, they have no obligation to service SOPA supporters.

JeffL 15y ago
While that sounds cool, such blatant non-neutrality from search engines sounds almost as scary to me as what they're protesting.
- Joakal 15y ago
  The alternative is the bill making such companies non-neutral, for copyright industry interests.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Agreed. "Free speech (so long as we agree with it)" is exactly what we're opposing, here.
  - kevinh 15y ago
    What we're (or at least I) am opposing is government regulation of free speech. Corporations are allowed to regulate speech on sites that they own.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      Fair enough. We can at least agree, I hope, that tactically it would be a poor choice.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  That ended when they passed the DMCA.

Joakal 15y ago

Watch out for movement fatigue. The Internet Filter/Censorship blackout happened in Australia; it was partially successful in the filter not being mandatory. But the biggest ISPs are pushing filters on their customers 'voluntarily' with government money (Capitalist take: Internet Censored cheaper than Internet Freedom) taking after UK. Unrelated to blackout, but the other big ISPs not forcing the filter on customers decided to police users for copyright infringement. Such unrelenting copyright industry anti-Internet parasites.

DennisP 15y ago

Hollywood has political power far beyond its financial power because of its ability to influence voters. The internet industry has that power too, but it's afraid to use it. If Google and Facebook were to demonstrate that power once, on an issue that most of their users will agree with, the industry would get a lot more respect in D.C.

statictype 15y ago
Your comment made the line "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!" run through my head. More seriously, Facebook alone doing a single-day blackout would be powerful. I guess its a question of how much money they'd be losing by doing it.
- maqr 15y ago
  It might be a question of how much money they would lose by not doing it. SOPA enforcement would be insanely expensive for a site with as much user generated/linked content as Facebook.
  - sgk284 15y ago
    The thing to keep in mind is that SOPA, if I understand correctly, only applies to foreign entities. As it stands, FB won't be impacted substantially by the legislation. That said, it'd be in their best interest to stop this now, because even if this doesn't impact them, slowly but surely the laws will be amended to apply to everyone.
    - buff-a 15y ago
      Foreign entities don't have Facebook pages?
      - dangrossman 15y ago
        Foreign entities refers to the website operators. SOPA creates new rights of action against site operators and their domains, not individual URLs.

feriksen 15y ago

In the short term: instant win. really. as stated by others in the thread, practically 100% of the internet start their days in one of these core services, google, facebook, yahoo, tumblr, twitter, etc. In the long run though, dangerous move, as every politician alive in every(!) nation would start work on curtailing the obvious power in these companies hands demonstrated by such an event. but win? hell yes. no question. Someone likened it with a "6k km meteor", aka world-killer, and that was probably spot on. On one hand I would love seing it, and think of how powerless all these politicians would feel, but fear indeed the results further down the line. politicians like power...

ori_b 15y ago
An alternative outcome is that they would start realizing who they had to suck up to in order to get power, and that it's not JUST media companies any more.

mwsherman 15y ago

I’d like to see something with more teeth, and less potential for antagonizing disinterested users (which most are). I fear that this would satisfy us emotionally more than it would effect change. Which is an occasion for more creative thinking. The most important point, which the article mentions, is that Google et al have a direct relationship with users, and goodwill. It needs to speak to users in non-strident tones, and engage on a level that users might care about. In turn, it must engage those users to do something that politicos will actually fear. Perhaps something like “click here and Google will donate $1 to [politician’s rival]”. Or, Google simply gives $1 to an effective organization for every unique SOPA search.

zem 15y ago
the problem is that the users aren't disinterested - they're uninterested. blacking out google and facebook would go a long way towards changing that.

colinprince 15y ago

Upvoted for some honest-to-god, decent insightful writing. (not something I normally expect when I click a cnet link)

RobertKohr 15y ago

Join in the Google Bomb of GoDaddy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393177 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393177

rhizome 15y ago
Actually it's the link farms and spammers who should be linking to GoDaddy rather than giving free pub to Namecheap. I can't link to every provider on the right side of this issue.

snowwrestler 15y ago

Nuclear war isn't the sort of thing that usually produces winners. I have a hard time seeing Google in particular starting a nuclear war over this. They value relationships with big content providers and have done a lot to build them. If a drastic action leads content providers to pull out of YouTube, Google Music, Google TV, etc., it would hurt Google quite a bit. Users care a lot less about YouTube than they care about what they can watch on YouTube, and the most popular videos are "official" music videos. It is rare that huge consumer companies allow legislative fights to spill over and impact their core business. It usually just annoys customers rather than generating any sort of meaningful grassroots bump.

ypcx 15y ago
Where would they go if they pulled out of YouTube etc.? Do you think they are there because they like Google? No matter what product you have, if you don't market it, it's the same as if you didn't have it. Marketing is Google's other name, they are a marketing giant. There's an awful lot of extremely talented people floating in the wild, who are not under mega-labels because the mega-label business model only allows a handful few. Imagine what could Google do with its marketing power and this available talent - they can literally create a new mainstream music industry almost overnight. Regarding annoying of customers - when fascism was on the rise in Germany, lot of people should have been annoyed but they were left in ignorance, and that's why eventually Hitler succeeded in the takeover, before turning the country to ashes. When your government breaks the law, and then under the disguise of copyright infringement they take down any website that reports about it, the last working piece of the responsibility feedback loop is completely destroyed, the citizen is fucked, and the country eventually ends in ashes. That is the true danger of SOPA, and that is what SOPA is all about.
fpgeek 15y ago
I agree there would be repercussions for YouTube and Google Music, I'll note that content providers have already pulled out of / are actively blocking Google TV, so Google has little to lose on that front. I'll also say that I think the consequences for YouTube are smaller than you think."Official" videos may be the most popular videos on YouTube on an individual basis, but I strongly suspect that, as a group, user-generated videos drive the majority of YouTube usage, even though very few user-generated videos are extremely popular individually.

danenania 15y ago

Why leave it to the big guys to take the initiative? Larger players only jumped aboard the godaddy boycott after the grassroots push gained enough momentum that they'd look bad if they sat on their hands. We should take the same approach here. Set a day, then gather as many companies and individuals as possible who will pledge to shut down their sites and replace them with anti-SOPA information and calls to action. Once momentum is established, then call out the big corporations and challenge them to stand up for their supposed values alongside the rest of the web. They will find this much more difficult to decline.

jbjohns 15y ago
So you want little guys who are struggling for market share to risk it all for a fight they may not win in the end (and if they even survive, this losing stance could be held against them)? Companies like Google and FB could shut their entire US sites off for a week and wouldn't lose more than a few percentage of market share if anything at all.
- danenania 15y ago
  Maybe so, but the big companies don't have sincere values beyond financial self-interest. They'll only act if pushed into feeling that their credibility is at stake. Otherwise they'll pursue more conservative paths that benefit them and other large entities exclusively, like lobbying for carve-outs and exemptions, to the detriment of everyone else. Individuals and small companies actually have the ability and willingness to act decisively according to real principles and moral values. It may be unfair for the little guys to shoulder the burden at first, but the sad truth is that if we don't, no one else will.

Anechoic 15y ago

Wouldn't this just invite retaliations in the form of a massive deluge of pro-SOPA television commercials? There are a lot of folks who use Facebook/Google/Wikipedia, but I'd bet there are many more who watch TV, especially among the demographic who will fall for the "we gotta stop the pirates or the terrorists/drug dealers/child molesters will win!" tactic. I know there is a pro-SOPA commerical going around, but given that I've only seen it aired once, it doesn't seem

coreyrecvlohe 15y ago

Huge play if they pull this off. This could really set the stage for increased leverage as we move into 2012. There must be a show of strength that strikes at the core of the D.C. machine. This isn't just over people downloading Ashton Kutcher movies, this is about taking down startups that are in direct competition with the distribution players, this is about going for the juglar and using Congress to pick winners. Google, Facebook, Ebay, Twitter, Paypal, Wikipedia and everyone else needs to step their game up; this is going to be a long haul.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

That's not nuclear. Nuclear would be: you vote for SOPA you will be blacklisted from ever using google, gmail, facebook, twitter, aws. Your campaign, personal, and business websites will never appear in google searches. Your books will never be sold on amazon. You will never be allowed to have a google account, upload videos to youtube, or own an android device. That is nuclear.

nirvana 15y ago
And call me unreasonable if you like, but if this thing passes, and they haven't gone nuclear (or some variation thereof), as far as I'm concerned, they are endorsing it. There are a few times when you have to take a stand. This is one of them. None of the airlines opposed the TSA like they should have, and I stopped flying american carriers as a result, except where there's literally no other option. I won't have a problem ending all association with Google, Amazon, Facebook or Twitter.
- statictype 15y ago
  How about Apple and Microsoft and Adobe? And 37signals and foursquare and Dropbox and AirBnB and literally every other company that has an internet presence and doesn't go nuclear to support this bill?
  - ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
    Start a new Internet.
    - oozcitak 15y ago
      Is that impossible? Isn't it just a matter of running a root nameserver for the new internet?
      - baddox 15y ago
        It depends what you mean by "new internet," and how much control the government eventually takes over the actual hardware routing the current Internet. Even If the government owns every ISP, you could take part in encrypted communication, and I don't think there's any way for them to stop that. At the absolute worst, you could go back to basics, and just use the plain old telephone system to dial into known servers.

lhnz 15y ago

In the fantasy land of my mind, I'd prefer it if some of those large companies could cut deals with other governments to create pro-Internet laws and then move their headquarters abroad. If SOPA is passed the US deserves no less than total decimation of their position as a technological leader. Who is John Galt?

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

I wonder how effective it might be, in addition, for major sites to point directly to user generated content on their sites, posted by both well knowns and unknowns, and assert that that specific content would cause trouble for both the poster and the site. Bonus points if someone points to all infringing content on members of Congress sites, a la the recent Congressional torrent torrent.

plink 15y ago

Google, Apple, Facebook, etc., should just buy these media giants. The RIAA and MPAA would become like cockroaches ripe for stomping upon. That would be the real and permanent nuclear option.

andrewflnr 15y ago

Couldn't they just devote, say, half the above-the-fold screen space to a banner about SOPA for a couple days? Definitely gets people's attention, especially if coordinated across the internet, without pissing them off too much. It would link to a page that names names and gives action steps for users. Is there a compelling reason they couldn't do this or that it wouldn't work?

rwhitman 15y ago

There are far more elegant, insidious ways to destroy SOPA using the powers that SOPA opponents possess than something as cheap as a blackout. I do like the idea of PR hype surrounding the threat of blackout though. Just publicizing the potential threat of the 'nuclear option' in the press for a week should be enough to get congress to back off.

zwilliamson 15y ago

SOPA is all over hacker news and other tech feeds, but I have seen nothing on the television news outlets (CNN, FoxNews). Obviously, they want to see this slip through... they are all owned by big media business who are probably supporters.