Wikipedia Considers Total Blackout to Oppose SOPA
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
The only reason why Wikipedia's existence might not be threatened by the bill is because they're just too popular. Those behind SOPA know that if they enforced it against a site like Wikipedia it would reveal it as the flawed piece of legislation it is. Instead they will nab smaller time websites for infringements because people won't care as much.
In a way, SOPA might be good for the Facebooks and the Wikipedias because they will never get shutdown, but their competitors might. I guess this is contradictory to my first sentence, but I don't believe in relying on "too big to fail" for existence.
A simple, but effective, solution would be to simply change the site's style to draw all article text with a black background, a la redacted documents.
If this was done, users could still manually highlight using their browsers to view the text (and screen readers would still work just fine), but the effect would be still be striking, to say the least.
I don't think people really understand the ramifications of the law, and an example that affected them would do wonders for everyday internet users, with a side effect of drumming up needed media attention.
"A true blackout would be hellish: I don't know that there's a day that goes by that I don't read something on Wikipedia (which is the point, of course)."
I think a blackout would highlight just how many people rely on Wikipedia and might bring to light that they wouldn't mind donating a few dollars a year to keep it around.
Sadly, it failed as ISPs are now censoring 'voluntarily' by forcing it onto their customers [0][1], and the government is funding them. Amazingly, many Australians don't know that Australia's internet is censored now.
[0] http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter/telstra-op...
[1] http://delimiter.com.au/2011/12/11/isps-wont-talk-about-inte...
Of course, the fear-mongers would probably just accuse Wikipedia of being terrorist and pirate sympathizers.
And even if people cared, would that actually affect the legislative process? I'm not hopeful.
Action: Wikipedia goes into blackout.
First-order effect: People get angry because they can't look up something.
Second-order effect: They internalize that they should be angry about SOPA, and call their congresscritter.
Third-order effect: The amount of voters calling is enough to make said congresscritter oppose SOPA.
The only guarantee is that people won't be able to access wikipedia. Everything else is increasingly unlikely.
(It will inconvenience me, yes. That's the entire point -- it's the sole message that is likely to reach the masses, clearly. Do it, please!
At the risk of diluting my message, I'll further argue that this is what we need more of: Take away those "gifts" of technology from those who would pervert it. There's "no law" saying that the technorati have to support such morons. At least, not to my knowledge, not in the U.S. -- yet.)
Thomas Paine et al did not protest censorship by ceasing publication.
(Sure, after a week or so it might find its way to the same Google ranks as About.com's existing Wikipedia clone. But by then the message has been delivered.)
When these DNS-delisting enforcement operations – those from either before or hypothetically after SOPA might pass – finally get real, full-stack court review, they could very well wind up judicially prohibited as unconstitutional. It just takes a while.
They might be ensnared in the equal exposure laws during an election season, though.
This definitely doesn't apply to websites, though, so I was half wrong.
Looks like the equal-time rule specifically triggers when one candidate is given free time on TV/radio (that doesn't fall under certain news/documentary exceptions). So even on TV/radio, a 'blackout', rather than favoring any one candidate, would be OK.
I suppose there could be campaign finance rules that come into play in some cases – if time/space was considered a undeclared donation. There was some noise about this with regard to the FEC and political bloggers in past US election cycles.
But yes, hope they go for it and stop SOPA.
Perhaps formal neutrality could be maintained by simply offering an awareness banner: replace the fundraising insert with informational links to both pro- and anti-SOPA websites. The readers will be able to figure out the right position, for their own interests. (Perhaps, even, any pro-SOPA site would be toppled by the natural clickthrough traffic.)
Even if a protest displaces the fundraising banners for a day or more, the added attention to Wikipedia might boost the overall fundraiser.
When a law threatens the existence of your organization as we know it, what else are you supposed to do? Would you rather have:
a) a completely politically neutral organization that has silently been neutered such that it cannot fulfill its mission
b) a mostly politically neutral organization that only expresses political views when the issue directly impacts their ability to fulfill their mission
The readers will be able to figure out the right position, for their own interests.
I don't think the problem here is whether people would be able to make up their mind if they had all the facts. The problem is that this issue has not received enough media attention and as a result very few people are even aware of it, let alone aware of its repercussions.
National media outlets certainly have a reason to avoid coverage of this issue since most of their parent companies support this legislation.
Many journalistic organizations forbid their reporters from making political donations, or holding shares in companies on which they report. This is considered a good thing.
Public defenders take on clients without regard to the heinousness of their alleged crimes or the attorney's personal opinions of the defendant. This is also considered a good thing.
I don't think SOPA even in its worst form would actually 'neuter' Wikipedia. In particular, if the US government ever did censor Wikipedia with force of law, that would generate even more sympathy and uproar than a merely simulated blackout. And that might be the necessary test case to get the SOPA law struck down (by the courts) or repealed (by a later Congress).
That is, I don't think you can be sure that dropping one principle (political neutrality) in a dramatic gesture now will be better for the stated goal (defeating legalized censorship) than just diligently continuing to be a principled, NPOV source of reliable information.
Certain activists-by-temperament always want to politicize everything – "you're with us or against us, solidarity, unity, this issue is so important everyone must take sides!"
But society can often be more robust against injustice and oppression when some key institutions zealously cherish their duties of neutrality, and stay above the dirty business of politics, without applying any self-interest calculations.
* Wikipedia probably won't go down. It's probably too big to fall. If a just looked at exactly what the law said and completely disregarded their reputation, they would take it down, but that probably won't happen. And, this is under the assumption that RIAA lawyers would even dare go against Wikipedia. If they think they're God, they might.
If Wikipedia is too cowardly to defend itself, I fear it will not be around long enough for it's "principles" to matter in the long run.
I have a hard time seeing why "political neutrality" is ever an important principle, but especially in this case, Wikipedia would be acting in what it considers to be it's own self-interest. What merits are there in any entity remaining "neutral" in circumstances like that?
Political neutrality is also considered a good thing for judges, various public officials, and many journalists. If you have a diversity of strong political opinions in your family or workplace, keeping the shared spaces/events/organizations politically neutral is also usually a good idea.
If something threatens the basic rules our society is build upon such as the constitution of the country you live in or human rights, as I believe SOPA does, political neutrality stops being worth maintaining, in fact I think it is actively harmful.
And nothing about "neutrality" suggests that you should not act in defense.
And as bad as SOPA is, there are many worse laws proposed or existing around the world. Should every Wikipedia in countries that already have far worse free-speech laws be constantly blinking out in intermittent protest, once this threshold for 'stop-the-service' activism is set?
" Should every Wikipedia in countries that already have far worse free-speech laws be constantly blinking out in intermittent protest, once this threshold for 'stop-the-service' activism is set?"
Arguably, yes. They should always do this in response to legislation that so directly effects them. Doing it after the fact is obviously of much more limited utility.
"activism"
Again, this is a silly accusation.