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The Obama administration is still voicing support for SOPA.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- blhack 15y agoGuys, these whitehouse.gov petitions are completely meaningless.
- ndcrandall 15y agoI agree in a sense of actually changing something. It is somewhat useful in letting people not involved know what's going on by spreading the information around.
- mistercow 15y agoSigning a petition is a symbolic act that causes you to commit to yourself the idea "I am the sort of person who cares about this issue". Petitions are, at best, only secondarily for influencing the powers that be. They are primarily for influencing the people who sign them.
- developer9 15y agoI agree. Instead of a petition, we should contact them directly as we did with our senators. So, use this instead: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comme...
- jamesbritt 15y agoSigning a petition is a symbolic act that causes you to commit to yourself the idea "I am the sort of person who cares about this issue". Or let you believe you've actually done something, so now you can direct your attention to other things. Is there any evidence to show that signing a petition makes a person more inclined to take additional practical action?
- mistercow 15y ago>Is there any evidence to show that signing a petition makes a person more inclined to take additional practical action? Yes, there is some evidence. In Chapter 3 of Influence: Science and Practice, Robert Cialdini discusses this kind of self-image effect, citing several studies including one in particular about petitions[1]. These kinds of "commitments" (even though they are not actually binding) really do affect our behavior, although the end results are not necessarily particularly issue-focused or predictable. One thing we can say though with some certainty: if you convince someone to sign their name to a petition that says "stop X", it will take significant mental effort for them to later decide that they actually support X. [1] http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/4/2/195/ http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/4/2/195/
- jamesbritt 15y agoThank you, quite interesting. There's a caveat, though (from http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/freed_fras_foot.html http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/freed_f...): Remember, these were innocuous requests from a non-profit group with relatively non-controversial goals. This technique may not produce the same results for more political or more controversial requests.
- mike_ivanov 15y agoNah, it's just another cargo cult.
- mistercow 15y agoWhat is? I'm struggling to see how the cargo cult concept applies here.
- jerrya 15y agoThey are potentially useful because, sadly, the President has made them meaningless, and so they can be used as markers in a timeline.
- jbooth 15y agoThey didn't exist before the current president, so it's logically impossible for him to have made them meaningless. Whatever miniscule approximately-zero meaning they have now is more than they had before they existed.
- lonnyk 15y agoThe petitions are not meaningless. They just are not doing what you want them to do. The point of these petitions is to get a response from someone in the administration who is familiar with the topic [1]. They have done this over and over again. In some instances, after reviewing the instances they have also changed policies [2]. [1] https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/frequently-asked-questions https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/frequently-a... 'What is the purpose of We the People?' [2] https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/were-listening-seriously https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/were-listen...
- shortformblog 15y agoConsidering an official whitehouse.gov petition led to the White House response that eventually turned the tide on SOPA the last time, actually that's not true. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/14/obama-administration-responds-we-people-petitions-sopa-and-online-piracy http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/14/obama-administrati...
- zupreme 15y agoSOPA is simply the old-guard clutching at the side of the cliff for dear life as they, inevitably, plummet to their deaths. Next subject.
- cowkingdeluxe 15y agoExcept they have a lot more resilience than the tech industry does and will eventually get something passed. You can't stick your head in the sand and hope they go away.
- tomjen3 15y agoThe problem is that the tech industries are nice guys. We aren't prepared to play to win, we won't bribe politicians, blackmail them with pictures of their affairs when they won't take the bribes, have the law firms involved debared, have the CPS take their children. Spread rumors and destroy the friendships, connections and trusts the lobbiests depend on. That we cannot comeup with such ideas are åroperly a good thing but it is also a pretty large handicap when we are up against people like the MPAA (who, granted may not be playing as dirty as these suggestions).
- gtaylor 15y agoI hear Yahoo is getting pretty evil these days. Maybe they'd do the dirty deeds for us.
- zupreme 15y agoAgreed. But I'm not advocating sticking our heads in the sand. What I do think is that, if we let ourselves get sucked into playing the game by their rules we (the tech industry) will lose. They have more lawyers, politicians, and even law enforcement officers in their pockets than we do. The only way to win is to do what they cannot do: Innovate and build platforms and technologies for sharing information so quickly that it becomes impossible to stop the sea change. If we spend time and brainpower trying to compete in their arena we will get crushed just as surely as they would if they tried to compete in ours.
- Jach 15y agoCan HN have a moratorium on political submissions for just two months?
- artmageddon 15y agoNo, because if we stop monitoring political events that relate to our interests then we end up with things like the DMCA.
- Jach 15y agoWhat percentage do you estimate of HN users would never hear about this if it never was submitted here? What probability do you estimate that anything (clarification: anything significantly benefiting "our interests") is going to happen conditional on every HN user having heard about this? On a scale of 1 to 10, "hardly" to "very", how surprised were you to hear about this? Edit: And one more, since the downvote police haven't gotten this one yet, what probability do you estimate that by HN ignoring the political world for two months any of your nightmares will come true?
- why-el 15y agoYou dont see a connection between this link and the HN community interests?
- walru 15y ago"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." --Thomas Paine
- Jach 15y ago"I object to teaching of slogans intended to befog the mind, of whatever kind they may be." ~Franz Boas (Hmm, someone didn't like that quoteback. Okay, here's another one, from yours truly. "Gentlemen, I'm just as concerned as you are about those Redcoats overrunning our town! I just don't think my front yard is an adequate, let alone optimal, place to defend it.")
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- ryankshaw 15y agoso I am totally in support of blocking SOPA/ACTA and as a developer it is really important to me but the call to action at the bottom is a little misguided. It actually makes me proud of humanity that more people want to petition for "stop expanding trade with vietnam at the expense of human rights" than stopping ACTA. the latter being somewhat of a #firstwordproblem and the former dealing with human slavery, death, etc. so when you go sign the petition, sign the "stop ACTA" one AND something else that is, in the grand scheme of things, more inportant to human life.
- J3L2404 15y agoAlthough I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment about 1st world problems, can you expand on why as a developer you are in favor of more piracy? I feel the big guys will always be able to protect themselves and it is the little guys who really suffer.
- gsoltis 15y agoBeing against SOPA/ACTA/etc. should not be construed as being pro-copyright infringement. He might simply be pro-due process and pro-innocent until proven guilty. Those positions alone are enough to cause one to not support these sorts of bills.
- J3L2404 15y agoI wish you were right, but pg has clearly stated anything copyable deserves no copyright.
- gsoltis 15y agoThat the original commenter is pro-piracy does not follow from pg having voiced an opinion on copyright. Claiming as much only serves to mask the problems with these bills. Perhaps you meant to limit your statement on wanting more copyright infringement to pg?
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- zaidf 15y agoObama Admin needs to straight up create a position that is the OPPOSITE of the Copyright Czar...someone who can internally bat against much of what the Copyright Czar comes up with.
- sleighboy 15y agoI'm sure they'll do that right after they create the Peaceful Diplomacy and Non-Intervention Department.
- gst 15y ago"For petitions, open letters, or similar public communications that you've signed or completed, we treat your name, city, state, and comments as public information." Nice. So if I sign the petition they are allowed to sell my data?
- briandear 15y agoIt's a great way for the whitehouse to build contact lists for potential contributors. The petitions are meaningless. Pressuring Congress is far more effective and time-tested.
- bmj 15y agoIsn't this the way petitions work? I mean, if a group brings a petition to a city council, what good is it if it's full of names? Simply saying "15,000 people support this" without enumerating those supporters doesn't seem very effective. And that also seems to be standard verbiage for online petitions. See this one (http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/ http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/): Petitions and Surveys For petitions and surveys you've signed or completed, we treat your name, city, state, and comments as public information - for example, we may provide compilations of petitions, with your comments, to the President and legislators, other targets, or to the press. We will not make your street address publicly available, but we may transmit it to members of Congress and to the President as part of a petition. This is a standard industry practice in such situations. In no such case will we disclose your email address or phone number without your permission. We may also make your comments, along with your first name, city, and state available to the press and public online. Under circumstances where we determine that members may be misusing our systems for malicious purposes (for example, using the numbers we provide to make harassing phone calls), such activities may be reported to law enforcement agencies. In such cases, MoveOn may release personally identifiable information, including name and address, to those agencies.
- vaksel 15y agosupporting opposition to bills like this is only the first step. there needs to be a campaign to make them pass a law or even an amendment to the constitution to prevent them from trying to slip by when noone is looking they only need to get lucky once...and its a 100x harder to repeal a law than it is to implement it.
- jostmey 15y agoThe article provides a citation as their source. The source is a PDF file on whitehouse.gov, published by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC). All the document says is that IPEC supports SOPA. Does this mean the White House supports the legislation?
- drucken 15y agoHead of the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) is appointed by Obama and confirmed by U.S. Senate. The White House supports it because it is the White House.
- giberti 15y agoI can't find the source for the quote, "we still need legislation for blocking foreign websites." The referenced document doesn't actually say that, in fact, the word "blocking" doesn't even appear in the document at all. Seems like the author of the petition assumed the reader would thing tl;dr and just assume it was accurate.
- Duff 15y agoPerhaps this is just another case where the Obama administration is "speaking in shorthand." It sounds like the president is supporting SOPA, but in actuality he is speaking in some law professor dialect where words do not mean what they seem to mean.
- cpher 15y agoYes, because we're not capable of understanding his "shorthand" descriptions of things--SOPA, ObamaCare, etc. Instead, we need another entity to translate what we're supposed to hear--e.g. the media. IIRC, Reagan's "shorthand" descriptions were directly on point and were not mis-understood by even foreign countries. I guess Obama isn't the great communicator everyone thought he was...
- Retric 15y agoIf you compare some of Reagan's speeches with what he did and you can find plenty of cases of 'short hand'. Politicians need to communicate so stupid people like what they are saying, taken out of context they don't say anything embarrassing, AND still convey nuanced ideas to other politicians out there. Consider back when Clinton wanted to change healthcare many Republicans advocated for 'ObamaCare' which directly copied a host of republican ideas. Republicans did not actually mean what they where saying, they just wanted to shift the debate without saying we like the current system. Which is why you can find so many old speeches that are at great odds with what the party is saying today.
- nhebb 15y agoI think you're confusing two people at the Heritage Foundation (Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier) with "many" Republicans.
- Retric 15y agoUmm, what about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_refor... I know it's 7 years ago, but Mitt Romney is probably the next Republican presidential candidate and it's not like the party penalized him for his past stance. Or even really talks about it. And if you really want to dig into it, look at who voted for in in that states legislator.
- davidu 15y agoVictoria Espinel is not the same as Obama. She is on her last legs in the Whitehouse, and I think most agree that she was a bad hire who has assembled an even worse team. She is the typical B hires C and C hires D players. She'll be on her way out soon enough. I'm sure she'll land in MPAA land or somewhere equally gross.
- notatoad 15y agowhat are you going to do, vote republican instead?
- btilly 15y agoActually this issue is important enough for me that I would. I'm curious who is going to run as the Republican candidate for Senator this year in California. Because if they manage to pick a relative moderate (like Meg Whitman, but not Carly Fiorina), I'll be voting Republican.
- btilly 15y agoThis should not be a surprise. When I saw that Obama picked Biden as VP I knew that something this would happen. He has been a friend of Hollywood's for a very, very long time. Furthermore he and Obama agreed to the Carter/Mondale model of how to run the VP office, where the VP is in the white house, in every meeting with the President and is the last man in the room. That gives Biden zero visibility..and a finger in every decision. Hence real power. (As opposed to the way that Reagan/Bush reportedly did things, where Bush's job consisted of checking each day that Reagan was still alive, and then taking the rest of the day off.)
- spinchange 15y agoOf course they are. Isn't there a revolving door between the RIAA/MPAA and the DOJ?