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Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

The world doesn't give a toss or have an iota of awareness about HN.

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.

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I'm English and would be annoyed if a site I used vanished for a reason that is nothing to do with me. You don't like what your govt is doing, vote it out.

I'm English too but totally support US sites blacking out in opposition to SOPA. It will affect the entire internet if the bill passes and may be used as a template for other countries (Note: I don't think HN blacking out will have much impact so I don't support this particular question)

It is beside the point where you are based. The US are pushing this because they know that other countries will follow. So if they can't shut down a site because its out of their jurisdiction, in the long run they wont have too.

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.

We did have a government that believed in censorship, surveillance, ID papers, biometric databases and so on. Guess what, we voted them out, and the first thing the new government did was scrap all that.

It does have everything to do with you. If SOPA passes it will be a massive threat to sites that are used by everyone - where you live is irrelevant when sites you use start shutting down their user uploaded content or add draconian moderation measures out of fear of the possible consequences of being cut off by their payment providers or losing their US traffic, or when they close as a consequence of losing revenue from the US.

I'm English, this has everything to do with us. Clearly HN should go dark, for people from non-U.S IPs it should redirect to a site explaing the international implications.

That's been working great lately.

Is this guy serious? Ok, let's taylor the entire Internet to him. I would hate it if he became "annoyed". Oh and BTW, it's clearly an easy solution... let's just "vote it out".

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