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This law is too complicated for the average TV viewer to understand. Debating it on the merits is going to make you lose. You have to find counterpoints that th
by spolsky 15y ago
This law is too complicated for the average TV viewer to understand. Debating it on the merits is going to make you lose. You have to find counterpoints that the average TV viewer WILL understand. They have to fit comfortably in a tweet.
When they say, "This is a jobs bill," you say, "This is a typical big government attempt to meddle in something they don't understand."
When they say, "This won't affect American sites," you say, "Search engines don't pirate movies. Neither do Visa or Paypal. Going after them is just unfair." [Note: Search engines. Not DNS. The minute you say DNS you lose.]
When they say, "Google profits from pirated software," you say, "Not as much as the congressmen are profiting from the $95 million dollars in lobbyist money that paid for this bill."
Other talking points: "How come congress can't seem to agree on anything that matters to the country? Unemployment, the deficit... they're totally gridlocked. But when the entertainment industry pays lobbyists $95 million to get a bill they wrote passed, both Republicans and Democrats line up to co-sponsor it."
Trying to say something that actually gets to the merit of the bill is a waste of time on a Sunday morning talk show... it's just too complicated an issue.
- cdixon 15y agoSadly, I think Joel is right. Format is designed for soundbites.
- kn0thing 15y agoThanks, gents. I think this really nails it (I second your sadness).
- myprasanna 15y agoNumbers about hulu accelerating revenue for the movie industry and actually combating the free pirated ones with a better service might have been a good counter-point followup. http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/ http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant...
- campnic 15y agoI completely agree. Alexis was dominated in this in a few ways. 1. The exec was a complete ass and Alexis didn't call him out for being rude and condescending of alternative interpretations. There was a lot of potential to completely bankrupt his opinion using other perspectives from individuals with less at stake in the fight then this executive. 2. As you pointed out, his counter points were too dense for natural consumption by "average" americans. Its not just DNS but the internet in general is mostly an entertainment to most Americans. You critique of the language modifications that have to happen is dead on. 3. Mr. Cotton had one point and Alexis seemed to wander all over. Judicial process + wholesale theft + non-domestic vs. (Alexis') dense and theoretical arguments revolving around feasibility and implementation. As tech people, we can all agree that this is important. With out the soundbites, we'll never get the critical mass to prevent this. Alexis did do a good job of maintaining his composure with the really inconsiderate tactics. Just needs to put together a few key "talking points" and hammer. Thats the way this works in these news formats.
- badclient 15y agoSecond this. When they say it's a jobs bill, counter with something like this is sending more people to jail bill or shutting small American businesses down bill. Tell them how one server can be hosting hundreds of American businesses. If one store in your mall is selling fake Nikes, imagine if the entire mall would be raided and shut down? This bill does that. This bill shuts down the entire mall because of one bad store. Hundreds and thousands of American businesses can be shut down for no reason leaving even more people unemployed. I understand how much we want to argue about free speech and dns filtering. But welcome to politics. This is where we learn from these folks: talk about the topic of the day. Today, that is jobs. Find an angle to link this shit to jobs. The opposition certainly did. We haven't quite(you made some headway by talking about Ford).
- kenjackson 15y agoI agree with Joel. I'd further argue that the key talking point should be something like: This is a battle between old established interests who have long controlled congress's wallet versus the leading innovators in the United States. Who do you want leading technology decisions in this country? Congress and cable providers or Google/Apple/Facebook/Microsoft? Follow the money. It's as simple as that. There's a reason why every innovative tech company in this country is against it. This will stifle innovation. Follow the money and you'll see how old established industries who have fought innovation for years are the same ones pushing this bill down the throats of the American people.
- thebigshane 15y agoComing up with easily digestible tweet-size slogans targeting the average TV viewer is not a game we can win. The media will always win at that game. We can't win in the money game either. I see one thing that could defeat this: convincing smart people who have the ear of Congress that this really is bad. I don't think we have convinced those people. Some may interpret that as corrupt Congress ignoring the people again, but I interpret that as maybe our arguments against it aren't really all that great. Congress is going to to see these slogans just as they do the "SOPA will break the internet" stories. Maybe our only real complaint is that we don't want Congress meddling with our Internet and that reason just isn't good enough to convince anyone?
- nitrogen 15y agoI wonder if holding something in your hands would help. For example, you could hold up a printed study and respond with, "I'm holding in my hands a government report that says otherwise."