Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?
I think Hacker News should stand with reddit to go dark in support of SOPA. SOPA seems very important for the future of HN and startups associated with ycombinator.
You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars.
Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blacked out won't travel to the general public or politicians.
But what if it does travel to the public / politicians. "A website called Hacker News blacked out? Hackers are bad right? A bit like pirates which this bill is protecting us against? Shouldn't this site be blacked out anyway?"
HN has an unfortunate name. You black out a website to make a statement. With HN which is so obviously anti-SOPA/PIPA I don't see the point.
Now.. if gravatar blacked out all of the avatars for a day. Or Google + Bing + Yahoo turned off the switch for a couple of hours at the same time... that would be a statement.
The point of the protest is not only to let your regulars know (as you pointed out, they already know) but to let the world knows.
How?
When all the tech sites go dark, one can say: look, the entire tech community is strongly opposed to this thing, just look at these sites <insert list of links to high profile technology websites>.
Blacking out HN would be like switching off your computer in the privacy of your own home. Nobody knows or cares. All that would achieve is to remove an important vector for communication and information spread in the tech community.
The UK have been trying to pass a load of crazy crap like this. If the US pass it then we will follow.
This is why everyone should be protesting against regardless of your geographical location, unless you want a web in which every country sees different.
And so what if HNers know about SOPA? It's the action that counts. A page with information on how to contact your representative would be more effective here than on most sites, given all the relatively active, well-spoken, and well-informed SOPA opponents on HN.
If you do say no to a blackout, please offer a better alternative. It'd be depressing if the bill passed and we didn't do our best to stop it.
Google have advertisers and business to worry about. They also have the G+ vs Facebook battle to be concerned about.
If Google blackout and no one else does then what will people do during the hours Google is down? They would go else where... shareholders and investors would be very unhappy. Especially if you consider these people who pop to Bing may decide they like Bing better.
If Facebook / Google / Yahoo / Bing all went offline from 6-9pm in a rolling blackout across the states on one night. (i.e. blackout by IP based on states timezone.) It would have a massive effect.
Hell, they don't even need to completely blackout. Just randomly black out elements of the page.
American's are still afraid of communism right? Lets add a bar at the top of the sites.
"SOPA would mean that we would have to black out portions of the Internet. Do you know who else does this? CHINA. Are you a communist? Campaign against SOPA here."
It's a bit direct but I thought this was how US politics worked?
As far as Google's advertisers, the G+ vs FB battle, and investors. It's either take a temporary stand now or get forced into taking a long term stand down later. What good is google ads if they can't run your ad? What good is a G+ vs FB battle if its really GOV vs G+ & FB? What good will it be to investors once their stock drops because google's ad rev (as well as other revenue sources) drops?
On the other hand, I think the GoDaddy exodus did more in a week than months full of discussions; 'big guy' corporations seem to really notice when we use our wallets to speak.
Based on that example, whom does HN control with its wallet?
Off the top of my head I think we could sway: AWS, Linode, Rackspace, Heroku and the likes -- are any of those supporters to begin with?
I think that would only annoy people. They should make everything above the fold go dark, and make people scroll down to get their regular content.
You can not control google or bing shutting down against Sopa, but you can at least control your own website and try to be supportive on HN doing so too.
I wouldn't be surprised if governments around the world are using sock-puppet accounts on a variety of sites to spread exactly this sentiment and to keep the masses quiet. (For the ones about to call me crazy, read this before you do: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-oper...)
I disagree. If certain big sites (google, facebook) black out then it WILL be covered by the mainstream media. As a result they're bound to publish "lists" of all other sites that have followed suit.
Every single site on these lists, whether Joe Public knows them or not, strengthens our cause.
The question is always: what does it take to push people from awareness and complete inaction to at least some form of action?
Hacker News is, for the most part, an intellectual stimulus, a drug for your brain. Something interesting to feed it while you are waiting for your code to build or to fill that oddly shaped slot in your daily calendar where you can't find any use for.
If we can make use of the uneasy feeling you get when your stimulus is unavailable and direct that towards what you could actually do to make your opinion observable, that would be a very good thing.
Here's how a website like Hacker News should be blacked out:
pick the busyest day at the beginning of the week (mon/wed) and black out 30 hours. from 0600 in the morning to 1200 lunch-time the next day.
on the site display information on how people can take action in ways that are observable. How to find their representatives, how to write to them in ways that are constructive.
There should also be some resources available to identify the backers of this legislation. It IS okay to not give companies that want to limit your freedom your money. It isn't "overly political" -- it is the most civilized and honest thing you can do. So do it to the degree you are capable and tell others.
Make or find materials that can easily be spread on social networks, because this is important: I assume that a lot of people reading hacker news are members of a self-selecting set of people who are smart and care. Your friends will look to you for advice. You are likely to have an above average degree of influence in your social network.
You guys are important and influential. If you don't do anything, everyone around you is going to take their cue from you and do nothing.
So I respectfully disagree that blacking out Hacker News is pointless. I think it is important exactly because inaction from us speaks much, much louder than inaction from the gray masses.
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3261 click on 'Oppose'
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968 click on 'Oppose'
Slightly harder:
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_sopa (Sends modifiable form email to your Senator and Representative).
Add a comments to the PopVOX entries
Go viral and tweet/facebook/G+ the DemandProgress page.
Harder still:
- Lookup your Senator and Representative's phone number and make a personal call. This gets the most traction as a constituent.
- If you are lazy, sign up on Demand Progress. Eventually you will get an email encouraging you to make a personal call. The software will provide you with the number to call and who you are calling based on your zip code. You don't even have to use Google.
Having HN black out is a dumb move. Most techies are aware of SOPA/PROTECT-IP. Many non-techies do not. Explaining just a little bit to my non-techie friends gets them opposing these bills. When we black out HN, at most we're simply shutting down a source of addiction. Even if it reaches the ears of the legislators, at best it will be seen as children saying, "I /QUIT, and I'm taking my ball with me." A bunch of techies shut down their own community site in protest. Wow ... Failure to understand Rhetorics 101.
Having FB and Google black out on the other hand reaches out to people who are not aware of these issues.
Best if you can convince non-techies to oppose these bills and then to have them call up their Congressmen. Tell them that bills do not, in fact, save jobs and would make life difficult for non-techies still treading water financially.
http://popvoxnation.tumblr.com/post/15753030372/protesting-s...
Calling out for Redditors to distributively discuss PIPA with senators.
Another vector is the press. SOPA is a non-issue in the press. It needs to get higher up on the agenda.
I regularly watch a few american newscasts and so far these issues have been absent. The anchors will gladly spend hours talking about silly, pointless bickering in congress, but will spend absolutely no time educating people on the issue that the prerequisites for a democracy are being eroded and being eroded rather quickly.
As a side note: The Economist publishes a yearly "Democracy Index". Last year the title was "Democracy in retreat". This year it is "Democracy under stress". Things are not looking good for western democracies.
If Hacker News gets up on the pulpit on Sunday morning and turns its back on the mainstream to give an impassioned message to the readership who is already there to sing on its behalf...
...well, you get it.
When you start an argument like that, I stop reading. Really, that's how you engage people?
> A leading enterpreneur community website goes black to protest SOPA.
``Our jobs would be endangered'', says PG.
> While discussions rage on the merits of SOPA,
a leading enterpreneur community remains calm.
``We aren't concerned enough to protest'', says PG.Any site with user contributed content could be kicked off the internet, and HN is one of those.
2) Perhaps a blackout will give some HNers the final push (and time) to make some phone calls to their representatives.
3) It can serve as a demonstration of what the web will be like if SOPA kicks in. Many HNers think that SOPA is a bad idea, a blackout will make us feel it as well.
Besides, it'll give us something to do!
One one hand a 24-hour outage would result in loss of a couple of bucks, but on the other, they in fact participated in the IPv6 day, so I'm not sure.
The only way to get a bad law stopped is to destroy the people behind it.
Of course, the question is, how do they define their political neutrality after this?
The most important asset these companies have are highly skilled and sought after researchers. How appealing will Google be to work for if the projects they work on are designed to:
* prevent access to information that researchers require for their studies
* stall or prevent innovation
* favour established and inflexible industries over startups
* increase the amount of bureaucracy everyone has to deal with
* force problems into hiding rather than providing real solutions
I think far more effective than a complete blackout would be requiring HNers contact their representatives before they can access HN content. Not sure how best to implement, but a email form that grants a token upon completion should be feasible (you'd need to decide how to handle non-US based IPs).
I have my doubts regarding the effectiveness of form emails on congresspeople, but I imagine those HNers who were going to call or write a more personal letter still will, with the added benefit of massive form emails from those less motivated to do so otherwise.
edit: grammar
That's in addition to the fact that it's consensus that emails aren't worth a damn here.
And also the fact that it would take significant wasted effort to implement.
If PG did something like this, I'd lose all respect.
If people want to write to their congressperson, they should do that of their own accord, not because they're being pushed into doing that to access HN content.
But if you're asking people to make a sacrifice you're not willing to make yourself, you're a bad leader, period. I'm not saying HN is the bastion of the tech world. But if we're upvoting the Reddit shutdown (at least I did), and we can't turn around and do it ourselves, well, we're not made of very tough stuff after all.
p.s. Pyrrhic is not the right word, maybe futile
Edit: Blah, I couldn't find any sources to back up my earlier statement. It's just how I've often used the phrase. My bad, I stand corrected.
A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/) is a victory with such a devastating cost to the victor that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat.
This should be investigated more by tech companies. Perhaps US policymakers will sit up and listen then
Blacking out sites ahead of that only helps illustrate to people the harm the law will do.
HN is a niche community with members who have a much greater capacity to influence the outcome of SOPA than a general populace. In some sense, a black out would inhibit the community's ability to affect change with respect to the issue.
If every active member of HN pledged to spend their available resources on the 18th towards working on SOPA, I suspect the outcome could have effects reaching further than even the championed reddit black out.
It's mostly a matter of deciding to place our money where our mouths are and collaborating effectively.
I suspect there is a strong correlation between IE users and people who don't know about SOPA... So maybe HN should "Shutdown" the IE user agent...?
I see it as fake work. We would being doing something ineffective to prove a point and distracting from something potentially more useful (which may or may not also prove that point).
(http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movemen...)
I vote for no shutdown.
So 'yes' will win. It may happen. Few people will remember it a year from now.
Good to support, too.
My account is plenty old, and HN is most certainly seeing a lot more reddit-like posts. Honestly I think the downturn started about the time we lost the ability to see comment points in threads.
I think dropping the comment points was a reaction to the downturn.
Either way, I don't think it's that big of a concern.
I know it's elitist, but I have no wish for this community to get exponentially larger.
For reference, all SOPA related articles on HN: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=SOPA
Is more valuable than that.
To the eyes of history, you have symbolic value in participating of a protest.
People will talk about what you did or did not in historically important (game changer) times.
So is all about how do you want them to talk about you in relation to this?
I agree that HN we ought to be willing to go dark, (insofar as HN is a leader of anything) but still vote no on the grounds that it will be a meaningless gesture. Leaders should be willing to sacrifice as they ask from others, that doesn't mean it's helpful in every situation.
ps. I may be biased. I've never been very big on symbolic value.
Think it from different points of view.
For example: if HN goes down, it could be a fact noticeable for a journalist's investigation. With luck, it could become a paragraph in a New York Times article about this subject.
You can more influential than you are thinking.
Despite the fact that the majority of HN readers already know about SOPA, I think it's an excellent idea for these other reasons.
It might also be an opportunity to get some of us off our butts and use the time we spend reading HN each day to call our representatives in congress instead.
So you think that HN being off for a few hours will make headlines in the worlds newspapers and on the main TV channels? Maybe as an "some tech websites were also offline [and nothing important was lost]" or maybe even (given the quality of some press) "other illegal hacking sites were down in protest against the bill".
I don't have a representative in congress but nonetheless expect congress is already pushing a similar law for my country.
I find the idea lacks any force as a demonstration.
Reddit, HackerNews & SlashDot down = Tech sites blackout
Reddit down = Remember that website that we reported was full of pedophiles last month? ...
If you want to have real effect continue (or start) to write your congress-person, educate your friends, and pressure them into doing the same. Post on Facebook, twitter, etc.
Compared to these real actions, shutting down HN is useless pageantry.
Perhaps "going dark" can help encourage said companies to show support - in a similar way that the Reddit post has triggered this post.
Come to think of it, I may do this with my website as well. It's no hacker news or Reddit, but it's a good day to do it.
Anyone who supports SOPA would be glad to see Hacker News down for a day.
What's the point of shutting down Hacker News again?
But this might be a good thing. We will have to struggle through a day's worth of a world without HN and be motivated to do something about it.
+1 for blackout for me.
All the startups/sites that everyone on here runs? Absolutely
You don't even have to go 100% dark, you can just have a splash telling your users about SOPA. You need to realize
For most viewers, just showing a notice explaining SOPA will be too abstract. Shutting down your site or service, while putting up a notice, has a higher chance of bringing the point home.
Frankly I think that HN is the wrong vehicle to bring attention to the matter strictly from a marketing/outreach perspective.
However, YC is a great channel to carry this message, and PG has already taken a very public stance on the issue.
I think this is a separate discussion from reclaiming "hacker" to mean "technologist" - Hacker news is about semi-technical entrepreneurs, and we are rather different from people of similar technical skill levels that are not entrepreneurial. That's an important distinction. I mean, I introduce myself as "the tall guy" as a reference to "Every technical business has a tall dumb guy and a short smart guy." - It would be useful, I think, to have a word for 'semi-technical business guy" because while my compatriots could also call themselves hackers, I usually act in the semi-technical business guy role. (I mean, outside of my peer group, I'm a semi-business technical guy of unremarkable height- obviously, this is a continuum.)
And for the record I don't consider semi-technical entrepreneur to be the definition of hacker I apply to myself. For me it's more about someone who can take two things and make something new with them, regardless if they should be able to or not.
In any case, its a form of cultural identity, so its up to those who identify with it to define it. If the mainstream doesn't recognize it, its our responsibility to fix that.
Do you see the distinction I am trying to make, though? and how the crowd here, people that are interested in both business and technical problems is different from the sort of person that is only interested in technical problems, and why making that distinction would be useful?
It is without question that the most effective protests are those that have direct impacts on the opposition and its supporters, but protesting is bigger than that. It is about trying to be heard just as much as it is about being heard. It is about speaking your mind and standing behind things you believe in even when your protest may fall on deaf ears.
For that reason, the overwhelming amount of people within the Hacker News community that oppose SOPA is the perfect reason TO join in the protest.
I would miss Hacker News for the day, but I would take great pride in being a part of a community that stands up for what it believes in.
How so? I'm having trouble recalling offhand anything posted to HN that would cause HN to run into SOPA trouble.
Section 103 applies to any site, foreign or domestic, that is a site "dedicated to the theft of US property". What it means to be "dedicated to the theft of US property" is defined in 103(a)(1), and can be found here at loc.gov: http://tinyurl.com/3lvuqc4
(I used tinyurl.com because the real URL ends in a colon, and HN seems to have trouble with that).
It certainly doesn't appear on first reading that HN would fall under this. The worst it appears this would do to HN is cause some hassle if content owners filed false notifications that HN had to waste time replying to. However, 103(b)(6) makes knowingly misrepresenting that a site is "dedicated to the theft of US property" in such a notice subject the filer to liability for damages and attorney's fees.
I haven't been through the whole bill, so maybe there is some other section that would put HN at risk?
edit: changed link to higher up in the bill. The link to the specific section was only good for 30 minutes.
"the U.S.-directed site...enables or facilitates (a violation of USC Title 17, section 501 and section 1201/ title 17; loosely, the copyright infringement code and copyright protection circumvention code)"
Basically, what this means is that if the core functionality of your site even enables copyright infringment (by, say, submitting links to infringing content, or posting copyrighted content in comment threads like this one), the site is an infringing site. The language doesn't require that you be dedicated to copyright infringement. All it requires is that your core functionality enable it. HN, by any stretch of the imagination, falls under that category. While you and I look at that and say "Oh, that's obviously not meant to target HN", the law doesn't work that way. The language says "if you have a comment box, you're at risk of being labeled an "Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property".
Additionally, you may be labeled "infringing" if you take "deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability" of copyright infringement; that is, if you make the deliberate decision that it's not cost-effective to screen every comment posted to your site, then you may be painted as "dedicated to theft".
Because I can post "46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2" on Hacker News, it can be argued that its core functionality enables violations of US Code Section 1202, Title 17, and therefore, under SOPA, Hacker News would legally be guilty of being a "Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property".
The "qualifying plaintiff" portions basically give the copyright holders the right to pull the trigger on most any site on which their content shows up on, even if the site isn't "dedicated" to infringement, just so long as the site's core functionality makes it possible to infringe.
the U.S.-directed site is primarily designed
or operated for the purpose of, has only limited
purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its
operator or another acting in concert with that
operator for use in, offering goods or services in
a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates--
the U.S.-directed site is primarily designed or
operated for the purpose of offering goods or
services in a manner that engages in,
enables, or facilitates--
the U.S.-directed site has only limited purpose
or use other than offering goods or services in
a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates--
the U.S.-directed site is marketed by its operator
or another acting in concert with that operator for
use in offering goods or services in a manner that
engages in, enables, or facilitates--
All three of the branches have conditions that would not apply to HN. The first requires that the site be primarily designed or operated for the purpose of enabling or facilitating infringement. That's not the case for HN.
The second does not have an intent requirement, but requires that the site has only limited purpose or use aside form infringing. Again, that does not apply to HN.
The third requires that HN be marketed as offering goods and services to aid infringement. I don't think it has ever been so marketed.
Your point on "deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability" of infringement looks interesting. That one may be a problem.
To paraphrase:
the U.S.-directed site is primarily designed for the
purpose of offering services that enable
copyright infringement.
My understanding of it seems to be the thing that so many people have an issue with; the concern is that SOPA's loose language makes any content platform effectively illegal, giving the media cartels a sledgehammer that they can swing at just about anyone they please.
The problem with SOPA is not so much what it'd accomplish if everyone used it with decent knowledge and in good faith, though there are issues with that too.
The biggest problem is largely what it enables people who act in bad faith or out of downright stupidity to achieve by shifting the burdens of proof and reducing judicial safeguards, while protecting these same people against any significant risks.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3446871
It was on HN the other day.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and that point about the reddit refugees. Yeah.
EDIT2: and then we can have haskell day on the 19th or something as well. sweet.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c...
The people who know about SOPA, or should know about SOPA, don't frequent HN. They use Google and Facebook.
The people who are in charge of legislating SOPA, or voting on it, are similarly not effected. I think Wikipedia should black out each legislator's page with a big "SOPA WILL CENSOR THE INTERNET" notice. That will get the attention of the 6 o'clock news more than some evil hacker news site doing a "protest". After all, what senator's ego could bear having their Wikipedia page defaced?
Anyone from Cloudflare here?
- If everyone on a site is aware of SOPA (and who isn't?), disappearing completely for the day doesn't help anything, really. And actually can be a bad thing; while I was able to watch the first hearing on CSPAN, I wasn't able to watch the other--the play-by-play on HN was really, really helpful.
- If no one who uses the site is aware of SOPA, going away will raise awareness and will be AWESOME.
- If your site is mission-critical, disappearing completely for the day is serious badness and could open you up to all sorts of mayhem.
By that logic, however, and I believe my logic is pretty sound, Google Search should display a doodle that jumps straight to opensecrets.org and Facebook should put up a big banner every third refresh telling everyone to wake the eff up. 0:)
For HN, I believe that it won't make a huge difference to anyone if HN shuts down for one day, and as many people pointed out before, many HNers are well aware of the SOPA and going dark will not bring much further awareness.
For Google or Facebook, both 1 and 2 would prove worth acting on it. Reddit, maybe since they have a huge following & traffic. HN, clearly no point.
Rather than going dark, HNers would/should participate to the reddit initiative by voting up more SOPA related posts on the day Reddit goes dark, since HN is a contents hub. That would be way more productive.
1) site owners forego potential revenue that day 2) customers cannot do business with them that day 3) users cannot access those sites that day
Depending on which sites participate, the immediate effects on the lives of those owners, customers, and users can range from trivial to very meaningful.
Will this be a worthwhile "investment" in the long run?
I can believe that a blackout will increase media coverage. I can believe that a blackout will result in more calls, emails, etc. to representatives.
What's tough for me to believe is that any of that will do any good if the end goal is to stop this type of legislation. I would genuinely like to see evidence that similar protests have historically been effective.
Until then, I can't help but think this is just the wrong tactic that punishes the wrong people. I hope I'm wrong.
I understand the solidarity point, but we need results here. The aim is to stop SOPA, not just protest against it in a private corner of the internet.
Instead, create labels [the mailing labels] named 'Stop SOPA' that can be stuck on our shirts. That'll create some awareness and easy to distribute.
They're going to be recognized directly by those who utilize whatever it is that's being sacrificed.
And more widely, reporting on the issue (because that's where the symbolism hits the road, so to speak), is going to take note that "demonstrating support and solidarity with the anti-SOPA movement, numerous websites, including <list here> went dark for the day". For HN to be in that list will add to its weight. At least somewhat.
And, well, we're all talking about this. Here on HN. Go do something useful and have this debate elsewhere.
Hrm: Perhaps I should petition Krell Power Systems to go dark in support. But man is that power-up sequence a pain afterwards.
You know what? It's still worth it.
Protests are heard the loudest when more people join them. I get that us being down isn't quite as informative to the public as say, facebook going down or google dropping out for a day but as other have already stated if we join others are more likely to follow.
It's the classic timid group effect (I doubt that's what it's actually called.) You know, when there are ten people being asked to volunteer an answer to a question, and no one answers until that one guy raises his hand, then suddenly everyone else has something to say. We need to be part of the first, not for us but to get others to throw their voices (or in this case, 0's and 1's.) behind the cause.
HN should be up. Instead of going dark, a better thing to do will be to declare the day SOPA protest day and post links/discussions related only to SOPA. Or get prominent people to write/live chat/video chat about why SOPA is bad.
It might still have an effect that sites, small or not, are all affected, so the long tail so to speak can have its own effect.
Something similar was brought up at reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/obl5l/ask_rsopa_is_the....
The purpose of the black out is to wake up people who have never heard of SOPA and educate them about the effects it will have on the Internet. It's not about some 'sacrifice' as some are calling it. It's the ultimate wake up call.
Rather, people of HN should black out their websites to get the message as far as possible. Let's keep HN up, so there's at least one place where we can stay somewhat organized and can keep track of things happening.
It's about forcing people to get off their lazy butts and make a phone call. And as much as we complain, I bet 99% of people here haven't made that call yet.
Sorry, but while I like this site your not going to do anything but annoy those of us who agree with the stance.
Simply put, the public in general does not know about HN and the public does not care. This site has little to no impact in that arena.
Now if you want to annoy those of us who agree with the idea of sites noticeable to the public going dark then you will have accomplished that.
I think it would be important that any blackout actually includes a call to action though, not just a message saying the site is offline for today - it should make it easy to actually do something (email, phone call, whatever) to protest against it.
I'm sure we can all make do without HN for one day, and it would definitely help the protests.
And to everyone who says that if you are not from the US, thers nothing you can do: actually thats not completely right. If the media in your country picks this up it will vastly amplify the message. (Think: "worldwide outcry becaues of SOPA")
(btw, I'm not from the US either)
If I'm right with this it can become the ultimate stress test for the HN community guidelines and it's moderation system.
But what about not using the internet on SOPA day? That would make a statement. If all tech companies just stopped using the internet for one day, people might get a little idea of what the internet means to us and how our work with internet is related to our customers.
There is the "awareness argument" to be made, there'salso a protest element. Going dark is a protest against SOPA, and I fully support that protest.
But most of all I voted yes because....
What if FB or Google went dark, but all the Tech Sites stayed up? What would that look like? It'd look like we're a bunch of selfish cunts, that's what.
Should HN go dark? Yes! Would it be effective? No!
But I think HN should populate the days articles with tongue-in-cheek titles like:
The article titled "New start-up to disrupt <INSERT SOPA SUPPORTER HERE> business model" has been taken down to SOPA compliance concerns.
and,
"All hail our mighty overlord: <INSERT SOPA SUPPORTER HERE>"
and,
"The failure of democracy and the rise of corporatism! Would you like to know more?"
I can live 1 day without internet... can you?
The outcome of this less-abrasive approach may be enough - and if not, Plan B can then be implemented; a complete blackout.
No one using hackernews fits that description.
I am in favor of a wikipedia or perhaps even a google blackout. HN needs a blackout about as much as an anti-SOPA blog.
Maybe for the day, the submit form asks something similar to: 'Is this article SOPA/PIPA related, if not it will show tomorrow'.
Right... go for it...
That's exactly why we should have the blackout, because that's a small taste of the nonsense that could come from SOPA in relation to many other sites we all check daily.
Maybe first take a poll titled "Do you know what SOPA is?"
The practice is to blacken your page. Force someone to read a "WTF IS THIS ABOUT?" and then pass them through to your usual service (still themed in black)
I voted yes. I believe that any gesture, show of solidarity or whatever you want to call it can help.
These actions might not have any effect, but it's better than just throwing your hands up in the air.
Maybe HN can just invert the colors on the site.
It would also show that there's a technologically advanced audience here that has great concerns of the anti-Internet attempts.
The appropriate action would be to block access from U.S. IP addresses and to block links to articles with the same.
There is no reason to make the rest of the world put up with more of the results of US political posturing than they currently do.
It's our (America's) problem. We're the one's who should feel the pain.
What's the possible effect of HN going black?
Blackout for justice.
Because the site isn't geocentric or political enough yet?
So for instance democrats depend on notion of symbolic representation to ground their concept of political representation. Without the former, the latter becomes vacuous.
"What kind of advantage does it give us?" seems to be the question. Perhaps it's a moral boost? In the political game, it technically says nothing. In perhaps our own schema of doing things, it technically says nothing. But the idea that people use these tools and can intentionally limit themselves (like with Freedom, the app that locks yr Internet connection) to represent freedom.