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I could be dead wrong, but I seriously doubt that Google or any publicly traded company will shut down for a day. I just can't see them taking that big of a ste
by Mithrandir 15y ago
I could be dead wrong, but I seriously doubt that Google or any publicly traded company will shut down for a day. I just can't see them taking that big of a step in protest of the SOPA.
They'd probably to announce it first, if it was a complete blackout; but if they didn't, someone going to the site would probably see just a blank page with information on the SOPA etc. Call me cynincal, but I'll bet 9 times out of 10 that the consequence would be the person either just clicking the Tweet/Like/+1 button (unless those sites have also blacked-out) and/or going to another site that provides the same service ("Google is down, so I'll use Bing" "Facebook is down, I'll use Twitter/Google+") That's not all though; other apps, companies, etc. that rely on Google or whoever would also have to shutdown temporarily (except if the parent site kept the APIs open, but then what's the point?) Is that fair to those companies, to those coders? You might say it's a short term loss, long term gain, but other people might not see it that way; e.g. "This site is down, so I'll use this other service until they are back up." I'm not talking about why they shouldn't but why they wouldn't if they don't.
More importantly though, how will this change anything? I'm not saying people or companies shouldn't protest, but I think the only thing the company that blacks-out their site will get will be a lot of angry customers and investors. More people will be aware of the SOPA, and maybe mainstream media will at least mention it, but talk doesn't change unless action follows. Perhaps I'm over-thinking this, but to me it just doesn't seem to be the most effective way of protesting.
- mbreese 15y agoI guess that I assumed that they were talking about putting up a permanent black bar at the top of their pages with information about SOPA and their reasons for opposing it. I hadn't seriously considered that anyone would take down their entire site. If organizers are hoping that a large site will completely go offline, I think they are nuts. This is one of the problems with a very decentralized anti-SOPA movement - there is no organization. I think that's why people are just hoping for a Google to take the lead.
- Natsu 15y agoGoogle, at least, could just do one of their doodles. That wouldn't be quite like shutting down for a day, but it's something they've done before and those doodles have gotten a lot of attention in the past. I wonder what creative ways they could find to inform the public about SOPA in the next week or so? What's the best anti-SOPA argument any of you have seen?
- Joakal 15y agoThere's some anti-SOPA jokes here: http://www.reddit.com/r/sopafunny/ http://www.reddit.com/r/sopafunny/
- dlss 15y agoI assumed they were talking about something akin to wikipedia shutting down for all of italy for a day. See http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/blackout-in-italy-the-first-time-wikipedia-worldwide-has-done-anything-of-this-kind/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/blackout-in-italy-the-first...
- adrianwaj 15y agoBlackout + link to petition + contact details of most relevant SOPA supporting politician + black top bar afterward (with links) would be better add: perhaps a black top bar for websites would work well as a JS, or a countdowned blackout script?