RFC: Blanking all Wikipedia as SOPA protest
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Facebook, google, youtube and wikipedia should take down their sites and replace them with a message about SOPA all on the same day. But it shouldn't end there. They should also personally attack each of the original progenators in the Senate/House of the bill. Their political careers need to end that day.
It's not enough to simply stop this bill. If they do, another will be enacted pretty soon with pretty much the same problems. Politicians need to understand that if they take on the internet and choose record labels over their own constituents they cannot expect support from their own political base.
If Google does it, this bill will die in a few hours and this shit will never come up again.
I hope that Twitter and Google have still enough spark to stand up for causes like that. This would finally provide an opportunity to use geo IP targeting for a meaningful purpose and directing people to take local action.
Pick it, Freeze it, Personalize it!
1. I'd go outside and do something -> But I can't use Facebook to coordinate anything.
2. I'd go out and eat -> I can't google places to eat, or google map where they are.
3. I'd just absorb information -> Oh wait... Twitter and Wikipedia are down.
Fml.
There are 100 million of other websites.
You can use a phone to coordinate something.
You can go out and eat at a place you went to before.
I felt so sad when I read these points and really hope you have a life without these services.
The business dealings of the rest of the world should not be collateral damage because of one nations political affairs.
So if you're going to use 'geo ip targetting' to make things local I'd suggest you use the same mechanism to give a free pass to those from other countries.
Maybe a worldwide blackout would discourage other governments from attempting something similar.
And people's enthusiasm to fight the bill will shrink next time around too. It's just like how people donate to a cause a few times around, but eventually get tired of it.
That will never work; it was a bipartisan group. The only way things are done in American are if either a union or corporation pays for it, or if there's politician gain in attacking the other party.
Facebook isn't just an information source, it is a communication medium. It would be like removing someone's email access for a day. For some, this might be a vacation, but for others, it would result in the failure of time-dependent project, which is not something that would win coverts to any cause.
- Youtube down, go on another video site or wait a day, who cares
- Google down, use bing/yahoo
- Wikipedia down, can likely find content in a cache (less easy but often very doable if Google is also down), if not the majority of Wikipedia users could wait a day and not have it do much harm. I use Wikipedia daily, but if I had to go a single day without it, it wouldn't really have a negative impact on me, just be slightly annoying. Or, find information on other sites, books, etc.
- Facebook down, there's no alternative. You can't just move over to Diaspora for a day. This is the only one where it being down for a day means you lose that functionality completely for a day.
Do people really only have one communications media? I find that with anyone that I actually talk to on a regular basis, I talk to regularly on at least 3 different communications media, often simultaneously. (I'm pretty fond of taking Facebook conversations offline to text message when I need to say something private, for instance, or to GChat when I want something a little more real-time.)
And if an important project would depend on somebody, you would probably bother to get a phone number or an email.
As I see it, disabling facebook for a day would be much less inconveniencing than say, disabling google's search engine (of course you could use alternative search engines, but none of them come close to google's result), or wikipedia (to which there's not much alternatives, really).
Let me elaborate. Right now most politicians in the US are pretty out of touch with the Internet, that much we can all agree on. They hear that it's powerful, and they have young staff members saying how the Facebooks and the Twitters are necessary nowadays, but it's easy for the regular politician to not really buy into the hype. Despite that politicians (and nefarious people in influential positions) aren't really happy with the Internet and the whole open thing. Which is precisely why we're getting SOPA. Now, US politician attacks have thus far been limited media copyright and piracy, dabbling a little bit into privacy with the Facebook stuff. These are easy targets.
Now, if these sites take this kind of action, and has the kind of effect that you want - namely kicking these politicians out - you don't think every other politician is going to learn a very big lesson. And I'd hope that we plebes have also learned a lesson. When politicians/people in power have a "threat" that they are actually vulnerable to, they don't respect it and learn to co-exist. Instead they try to destroy, co-op, or otherwise remove it as a threat.
Maybe I'm being cynical/pessimistic, but given the history of humanity and the way people in power behave, I think I have reason to be.
You're right, SOPA is an attempt to destroy the internet. This is a flat-out attack on the internet as we know it, and I bet the middle east uprising had something to do with it.
Yes, so they can forthwith proceed to the lobbyist phase of their careers.
I strongly hope this will happen, especially for the sake of non-US countries like mine.
There are a lot of comments saying that the blackout should spare non-US countries as it does not affect us. For those who feel this way, please read holmesworcesters comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3235431
Not only the USA is pressing hard to "control" the internet. Similar attempts will be made in the EU, in fact, one is already underway. See ACTA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agree...
If Wikipedia and hopefully Google would really replace their site for one day, it would raise the peoples awareness to such issues dramatically. And if some American politicians lose their jobs over it, some European politicians will keep that in mind when the next "Anti-Internet-Law" (of course it would never be called that way) is proposed.
But there's nothing we (non-US citizens) can do about it. Any noise we make means nothing to US politicians who are accountable only to the American people, and sometimes it looks not even to them.
Don't make the rest of us suffer for bad choices made by US voters.
To me, that's a small sacrifice that can be really rewarding.
It could even be up for about 8 hours between around 9am and 5am within USA time (CST or MST, or any other).
Do it. Paint it black.
Based on everything I've heard, this is a perfectly appropriate time to take bold action.
edit: It appears I landed on a gold mine of applicable quotes while looking for the above one, (and corporations are people too, right?)....
"It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs." - Albert Einstein
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri
In this case, the source of the misquote is known: a 1963 speech by John F. Kennedy.
--Steven Kaas https://twitter.com/#!/stevenkaas/status/25390344350
Changing Wikipedia, and tying it to a specific bill like SOPA, would likely tread very closely to that line, or over it. That really WOULD threaten the future of Wikipedia as it would face legal sanctions, or be forced to give up its 501(c)3 status, meaning that donations would no longer be tax-deductible.
This would not threaten Wikipedia's tax-exempt status.
And if you geo-target it to en/US only visitors -- you're a minute fraction of wikimedia's activity.
For example, from a 2007 IRS ruling on the subject: "Section 501(c)(3) organizations may take positions on public policy issues, including issues that divide candidates in an election for public office. However, section 501(c)(3) organizations must avoid any issue advocacy that functions as political campaign intervention." [1]
Further details in the referenced ruling suggest that if WM were to make reference to specific legislators and their respective positions, for or against SOPA, and thus even implying that WM wanted you to vote one way or another for those candidates, they'd have crossed the line.
Simply saying, "We don't like SOPA. Here's why it's the worst bill since the Let's All Grind Up Babies For Pet Food Act of 1887..." OTOH, seems to be kosher, per my reading on the subject.
[1] http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-07-41.pdf
(EDIT: clarification.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#An_updat...
There's nothing more powerful to make people move and contact their representatives than blocking them from their farmville, celebrity news, homework help (wikipedia) and so on.
If Wikipedia is locked out for a week, it will make mainstream international news in no time flat.
I think it needs to happen.
I am not saying all editorial coverage would be uniformly supportive, but it would certainly be newsworthy.
[1] http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/02/10/2211220/false-fact-o...
All of these people who will probably never hear about SOPA, even if it's passed, will suddenly realise that their First Amendment rights are under threat and will hopefully be incredibly, incredibly angry.
SOPA is awful, but political neutrality is an important principle.
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.
Some roles are not 'neutered' by their commitment to various standards of neutrality, but strengthened by it.
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.
Even ignoring the kill switch: this is a bill that would make it illegal to cite sources via hyperlink if the site being linked to contains copyrighted material anywhere, even outside of the linked page, or posted years after the link was originally created. Even if a user posted the link -- and even if that link was swiftly removed by an editor -- Wikipedia would have broken the law for allowing the link to ever have been posted at all, and would be subject to strict penalties. This is a law that Wikipedia literally could not comply with unless it changed its essential character.
Even if it did, the domain seizures by the US means that Wikipedia is always going to be vulnerable for as long as the US owns the root DNS zone.
You can only be neutral until you're the one getting beat on.
I definitely understand the sentiment, but I think there's a big difference between simply taking a political stance for the sake of it and fighting to make sure your non-profit organization is legally allowed to survive and continue operations as it has.
Philosophy > Politics IMO.
Some argue that it's impossible to be apolitical, because almost everything you do is a legal matter somewhere (drinking, eating certain foods, reading certain things), so by doing them, you are implicitly asserting a political position. Wikileaks has always been in favor of free speech, and publishes content that is actually illegal in some places. They have always been political to one extent or another.
That's a false choice. Many of the commenters would rather take the small chance that a Wikipedia protest could have been the deciding factor preventing SOPA than see the site politicized.
FWIW, I agree with them, and certainly one factor which weighs into my decision is that in my opinion the chance that Wikipedia would be the deciding factor is, say, less than 1%.
I am against censorship, but at the same time, I am not sure it's a good idea to shut down the Wikipedia without any agreement on when it would go back up. Suppose SOPA passes anyway. Then what?
1. SOPA will inevitably fail even without Wikipedia's help, so it's not even worth worrying about SOPA
2. SOPA literally cannot be defeated
My specific concerns are:
a. I think politicians can ignore something that "a majority of the Internet-using population" knows. As long as the "mainstream" media (i.e. television) chooses not to pick it up, the politicians won't be forced to answer for themselves.
b. If there is opposition to SOPA, either the public media spin will be controlled by politicians announcing that the draft law has been modified "in response to" the concerns/opposition/protests, or "SOPA" will be defeated but the powers that want it passed will regroup and send it through again next year under a different name.
c. If there's room to argue that Wikipedia is exaggerating the threat, then that is what will be publicly argued when this story breaks. This might not turn out so positively for Wikipedia (or negatively for SOPA): after all, which side has more experience and resources to put towards controlling the public debate? And that's before we consider the possibility that someone will seriously suggest that it would be better for Wikipedia to be censored.
Don't read (b), in particular, as defeatism: I understand that this is a war and that we have to fight the current battle as well as future ones. I claim only that in the cost–benefit analysis, the utility of defeating this particular incarnation should not be approximated by the utility of being free from SOPA-like law for ever.
b. The cost-benefit is highly skewed towards immediate action. It is highly likely that some incarnation and/or descendant of SOPA will eventually become law. However, it's critical that SOPA does not. If publicly defeated, future versions will be less ambitious and more rational.
But what I have in mind here is that this is a lot closer to the content of Wikipedia becoming politicized, in the following sense: user goes to Wikipedia to get information about something innocuous, Wikipedia takes the opportunity to tell user about one side of a political debate of the Wikimedia Foundation's choosing. That's a dangerous precedent.
Evolution in action, eh?
--
This is a trivial tactic based on the idea of anchoring. Say, one wants to pass an unpopular piece of legislation. He would then introduce something that is 5x as bad (an anchor), let the public take it down, and then reintroduce a (what now seems a much milder) version. Sure, the public may take an issue with it too, but it won't be as unified and uproarious. The public had their win, they prevailed, and they are simply bored to fight the same fight all over again.
That wouldn't be the same sort of technical challenge as SOPA would pose, but would drive home the point pretty well.
But perhaps more interestingly: because people would still have a job to do, they'd use Bing or something else, which would hopefully demonstrate to Washington just how circumventable the legislation is.
In a much more likely situation, they would put some kind of banner on Google.com expressing their distaste for SOPA. The same for other big companies like Facebook. I thought what Tumblr did was cool, they managed to get many people calling their local reps.
Also, I think we're concentrating too much on the big companies (not that it's really a bad thing). The little ones matter, too. Marshaling them would be somewhat easier due to their lack of hierarchical politics to make every decision.
Although you do have the problem of the multitude of people who just access the internet via Facebook's walled garden. They also have no idea what SOPA is/means.
So, if we can get the giants of the internet to do something - that's fantastic, but we need to get the smaller blogs/websites on board too.
Changing the algorithm is more insidious, unless or even if you had a disclaimer on top saying you modified the result to fit your agenda. I think this is comparable to modifying the Wikipedia SOPA article to be non-neutral, which is a terrible idea of course.
In the same vein, I don't think blanking Wikipedia can violate NPOV (in its Wikipedia sense), since this policy refers to editorial content: the articles themselves need to be neutral. The concept of NPOV is simply not applicable to the Wikipedia enterprise as a whole.
I'm heartened that they're considering it. I certainly think it's worth trying.
The English one, though, has grown so huge that it's more unwieldy now. I no longer recognize even some very prolific contributors, because there's no feasible way to keep tabs on All Edits To Any Article. It's unclear how to go about building community and decentralized decision making in really large communities. Even just this one discussion page is unwieldy: it's been edited about 600 times since Jimmy Wales floated the idea.
There is also, unlike the Italian Wikipedia, a more international base of contributors, and a vocal subset are really touchy about the English-language Wikipedia being seen as the "American" Wikipedia, so vociferously object to it doing anything in response to USA-specific politics.
If it seems like the motion has legs, then either Jimbo or someone else will create an actual RfC where the community will hash out a plan to enact it.
http://hacksandthoughts.posterous.com/blanking-all-wikipedia...
which is keeping a tally.
Frankly, Wikipedia organisation has every right to protest if it means long-term problems with SOPA compared to maintaining the reputation of being neutral.
Surely, a Wikipedia editor can point out projected costs and article effects with the SOPA compared to losing some article experts/editors from having a less neutral reputation. Much less emotion through the evidence route.
"Blanking" Wikipedia uses the Wikimedia Foundation platform to make a statement to educate the public about an issue that threatens to kill the Wikimedia Foundation (and Wikipedia, by extension), and thereby to enlist help in keeping the site alive. This is functionally no different from the Jimbo Wales Annual Stare-Into-Your-Soul-Until-You-Donate funding drive, except that then, the issue threatening Wikipedia is money rather than legislation. This is not Wikipedia taking a political stance on an issue just to take a stance; it is Wikipedia trying to educate the public about and beg for help regarding an issue that threatens Wikipedia's existence.
If Congress introduced a "Make Wikipedia Illegal" bill, would it be wrong or "politicization" for Wikimedia to attempt to defend their existence by making an emergency call-to-education to the public?
This is a simple darwinian situation. Entities that can defend themselves survive and those that can't vanish in time.
"You are trying to send a message that the SOPA is crossing the line for the internet, because it gives too much power to corporations to shut down websites and cut off their funding -- even if Wikipedia is unlikely to be among them. Shutting down wikipedia can illustrate this, but consider the consequences. First of all, Wikipedia content is replicated elsewhere, so people would be able to get at least a recent copy of Wikipedia articles somewhere. But before you take such an action, consider when you will "pull your troops out". Certain countries have started "military campaigns" due to a very controversial reading of their constitution (ahem, [[8]]) , and it always became unclear when to pull out. I am worried that if Wikipedia goes down this road, it will likewise be unclear when to revert back. Suppose the SOPA is passed anyway. Will Wikipedia voluntarily be its first casualty? In that case, be aware that your attempt at a protest may very well get Wikipedia permanently removed from the internet. If you are supporting this action, please explain below what it will take for Wikipedia to go back online, or else why you think it is OK for Wikipedia to never reopen for business as a result of this brinksmanship. I would oppose because if we all know Wikipedia will be back whether or not SOPA passes, then it's not a credible threat at all, merely a protest -- which at the end of the day is worth shutting down the site. "
It'd be comical though when a study puts a value to the U.S. productivity increase when youtube videos are an inaccessible distraction.
Some of those videos have sucked up millions of man-hours of viewing... if even a single digit percent of those views were by workers procrastinating, we're talking millions in lost productivity. (Per clip!)
80% of Internet traffic (just pulling that number out of thin air) blacked out? People will notice. People will care.
Wikipedia has the right idea and needs to kick this off. Then others need to follow suit.
Explain how SOPA threatens the existence of Wikipedia. Show your work.
It's one thing to say "this situation is different! we're fighting for survival!" and another thing to argue it based on past real events and the actual contents of the bill.
There is a reason WP avoids political advocacy as a foundational principle, and it's not just to preserve their status as a charity.
On the other, Wikipedia prides itself on its neutrality; it is one of Wikipedia's selling points, that they (at least attempt, as much as a collaborative, anonymously edited encyclopedia can) to provide a neutral point of view, keep from giving undue weight to fringe viewpoints, don't allow themselves to be tempted into being non-neutral or appear non-neutral by offering advertising. Making a strong political statement that takes advantage of their popularity would move away from this neutral stance.
On the gripping hand, this is something that would impact Wikipedia directly. Wikipedia would instantly become much more liable for any problematic content posted by users. They would likely have to change their editing policies, add domain blacklists to avoid linking to verboten domains. Many sources of information that Wikipedia editors use and link to may be banned. SOPA is in direct opposition to the open and free dissemination of information that is Wikipedia's mission.
So, I don't really know. I wish there were a good answer here. But there really isn't.
Perhaps even the neutral have to fight be allowed to remain neutral.
Censorship stands in the face of neutrality.
I know the USA is big in the anglosphere, but please be a bit less USAcentric.
And though it may be besides the point, you know as well as I do that if SOPA happened to pass in the US it wouldn't be long before most Western countries had their own version too.
Well, it's a straw poll anyway, so they may or may not act according to it. Let's see.
SOPA is evil. We need to do everything we can to fight it. Wikipedia is one of a handful of sites who have the power to really make a difference.
I suggest that not Wikipedia, but blogs, community sites, even your business sites all have at least some temporary display against SOPA.
I only get ~15 visitors to my site per day.
That's still something to work with.
We must all support a temporary Wikipedia white out. Those who are opposed are blind and need to understand SOPA.
(1) these people do not resemble your average American, and
(2) even they couldn't tell you much more than "it isn't good," or "it's what the entertainment biz wants."
People really need to understand SOPA. It needs to make headline news. This will push it there.
That decision has come to Wikipedia.
I agree with a proper blackout that presents the use of some/most of the site, and a detailed reason about why it is happening and who's responsible in the senate/house/etc for the bill so people know not to vote for them.
If you do nothing, its too late. One day of no Facebook won't be so bad.
And if someone at Wikimedia, you know, notices a DoS and just happens to have problems with their load balancer.. hey, it's not their fault - they stayed neutral!
"We're sorry. SOPA passed so we can no longer legally show you Wikipedia content. So long and thanks for all the fish."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA#Bill_targets_more_than_inf...
Wikipedia links to The Pirate Bay. Furthermore, it would be absurd for Wikipedia not to link to The Pirate Bay.
Examples abound: which "leakers" are prosecuted? The ones "leaking" secret government data which the government wants you to know (i.e. how Iran is supposedly in dealings with Somalia), or the ones leaking government data which it doesn't want you to know (i.e. Bradley Manning)?
When the law is so broad that everyone's a criminal, and enforcement is capricious and politically motivated, we are at a low point in the tradition of a just society governed by the rule of law.
Or more accurately, Wikipedia wouldn't take it to court: they'd censor themselves instead, so that they could stay on the internet. Which makes SOPA an existential threat to Wikipedia as a source of knowledge.
• it's unlikely that it would be used against Wikipedia for fear of backlash – smaller sites have much more to fear
• the law could be struck down by the courts on 1st amendment grounds, or modified/repealed before any application to Wikipedia
• Wikipedia could move to another jurisdiction
• etc., etc., etc.
SOPA is bad, and should be voted down, and failing that should be struck down by the courts. There's lots of equally bad legislation in the USA and elsewhere, every year. The principle of neutrality lets Wikipedia keep doing its main job, year-in and year-out, without constant 'interrupts' generated by the ephemera of silly politics.
Small comfort to any of the American contributors and users.
The threat of use is often significantly worse than the use itself. Realistically, big sites like, say, Google are not going to get shut down for a violation of a silly Internet law; the backlash is too big. That doesn't stop Google from being one of the most zealous enforcers of legislation like COPPA or DMCA, because the cost of a lawsuit, when you have gigantic pockets that can be raided, is simply too large a risk for them to take.
Same with SOPA. No big company will ever be sued under SOPA. They simply won't provide platforms for user-generated content, and then the Internet as we know it ceases to exist.
(Same with startups: would you start a company to fill that void if you knew that the first thing that'd happen if you became popular was that you'd be sued for a potentially dream-ending sum of money?)
Would be interesting to see the changes in grades for assignments due during a period when Wikipedia was unavailable.