Senators drop support of piracy bill after protests

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by ElieM

Wiki obviously.

Except not really. Like I said, their mobile pages were working just fine, which made me wonder why they bothered. (Even my middle schooler talked at supper about how he needed to look something up while at school so he pulled up the mobile version of The Wiki on his laptop.)

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

Well, not exactly. As the article states, Google "went dark" by making their google face literally dark. It just didn't go dark in the sense of shutting down. Semantics? Absolutely. And not an exaggeration if you want to split hairs.

I'll admit it. I used Google a number of time yesterday and never even noticed this.

What this should show people is if you browbeat your elected officials, they WILL listen. Well, they'll listen if you can get several hundred people to browbeat them along with you.

I don't think it shows that at all -- who was browbeating anybody?

My guess is that petitions and lobbyists for The Wiki et al did far more to convince some politicians to rethink their support of SOPA (in its present form) than did any "going dark."

Originally Posted by DrPhil

The fact that sites like Google, facebook, and twitttter either did no blackout or a halfassed blackout means something.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by AGDee

MC: It was my understanding that the point of the blackout was to demonstrate what the Internet would look like under SOPA. Key sites that would probably be shut down completely under SOPA obviously are against SOPA and used this as a way to show the effects. In reality, far more sites would be rendered useless under SOPA than those participating.

Yeah, I get that was their point. That was not the message I received, though. The message I received was



Claims like "this is what the web would be like if SOPA passes" strike me as so hyperbolic as to be counterproductive.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Yeah, I get that was their point. That was not the message I received, though. The message I received was



Claims like "this is what the web would be like if SOPA passes" strike me as so hyperbolic as to be counterproductive.

I agree, I wager the web looked the same for most people.

The most votes on the MSN poll seemed to be respondents who do not surf the web, do not go to blogs, did not notice a black Google icon, and/or do not go to wikipedia or could not care less if wikipedia is inaccessbile. Afterall, the web and other modes of technology have an impact on society and socialization but what did we do before this stuff existed? We found less lazy and more creative ways to find answers to our questions and procrastination tools.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Afterall, the web and other modes of technology have an impact on society and socialization but what did we do before this stuff existed? We found less lazy and more creative ways to find answers to our questions and procrastination tools.

This is the world's most ironic "GET OFF MY LAWN" post ... honestly, I'm surprised.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

This is the world's most ironic "GET OFF MY LAWN" post ... honestly, I'm surprised.

Newsflash:
I have been saying what I said for 10+ years on and off Greekchat.

Do you have other profundities to share? LOL.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Newsflash:
I have been saying what I said for 10+ years on and off Greekchat.

Do you have other profundities to share? LOL.

A flute with no holes, is not a flute.

And 10 years may represent multiple complete lifecycles for technology, which seems like a long time to hold a static view.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

And 10 years may represent multiple complete lifecycles for technology, which seems like a long time to hold a static view.

Yet I still hold it. I just wanted you to spare yourself the pretend irony and surprise.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Yet I still hold it. I just wanted you to spare yourself the pretend irony and surprise.

I wasn't feigning surprise, for whatever it's worth.

[separately]
While it's a convenient narrative that the "Power of the Internet" won the day, I'm much more inclined to go with MC's view, that there was a substantive shift in support behind the scenes based on potential consumer outcomes.

Actually, the version of events even in this thread - "This is the power of the people!" - seems overly congratulatory, possibly to a dangerous extent. SOPA was a dangerous bill, but I think the reasons were much less insidious than, say, Pike thinks.

I think it was poorly written, but the intention - protection of intellectual property - is actually an important step toward protecting rights long trampled over in the modern economy. Without such protections, there's no incentive to create - and the classic "Patent Bargain" approach to other IP is failing miserably. The bill took a piss-poor angle of attack - requiring third-party oversight, particularly against their own interests, is a recipe for disaster, but I don't think the bill language was vague out of a desire to eliminate the internet through the back door.

The only benefit to this awkward narrative appears to be ... those who crafted it, and those sites that "participated'? Very odd, to me.