122476: Archive

The Right Way to Protest SOPA

Wikipedia and thousands of other sites are going black tomorrow over SOPA and PIPA, but who is it really hurting?

By John C. Dvorak
January 17, 2012
7 Comments

Tomorrow will mark one of the greatest political protest experiments in the history of the Internet. One of the most useful websites, Wikipedia, will go dark for 24 hours to protest the miserable and stifling SOPA/PIPA bills before Congress. Most analysts will tell you that either of these two bills could kill the Internet as we know it. This is all done in the name of protecting American intellectual property. In fact, it is a smokescreen to protect the same old paranoid RIAA and MPAA contingents in Hollywood by using Congress to pass onerous laws that do more harm than good. Note, yours truly is a massive content creator (I could lose some weight) and I am not seeing any protection from these bills. On the contrary. But Wikipedia’s protest and other blackouts will not solve anything. They are a total inconvenience to users who may want to use the service. What is accomplished? People will get mad at Wikipedia rather than mad at the specific Congressmen who promoted these bills. The only effective measure to take—unless you love these laws—is to directly target the supporters and co-sponsors of the bills. How hard is that? Wikipedia would be better off removing the entries of these people or posting: “This Congressman is a threat to the Internet!” in big bold red letters across his entry and leave it there until he is voted out of office. Doing so would be taking genuine political action rather than screwing the users as some form of protest. For the record, I am not supporting these bills and do think their supporters should bail out from support, as co-sponsor Senator Jerry Moran did. For your information, here are the sponsors and co-sponsors of SOPA: H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act
Sponsor: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
Co-sponsors: Rep. Howard Berman (D-California)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-California)
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan)
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida)
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-California)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia)
Rep. Timothy Griffin (R-Arkansas)
Rep. Dennis A. Ross (R-Florida)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California)
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Nebraska) It’s not that hard to vote any or all of them out of office. As for the Senate bill: S.968 – Protect IP Act of 2011
Sponsor: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
Co-sponsors: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire)
Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colorado)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut)
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)
Sen. John Boozman (R- Arkansas)
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Maryland)
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pennsylvania)
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Delaware)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)
Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyoming)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-New York)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina)
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Connecticut)
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida)
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire)
Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) These people are the enemies of the Internet as we know it, not the users of Wikipedia who now must suffer from a blackout. I’m not sure why this list is not more widely distributed. Perhaps it is because there are some remarkable surprises on there, like Al Franken and Marco Rubio. View Slideshow See all (8) slides

In my experience, when it comes to witnessing all sorts of protests over activity online, people make a fuss but then never follow-up with direct action by voting those individuals in Congress out of office. That’s the only thing that works. Promote representatives who act in the interest of the public. It’s not that hard.

I’d start with a letter-writing campaign and phone calls. Email is commonly ignored in Washington, no matter what they tell you. Sitting around and grousing will do no good. Shuttering Wikipedia for a day or a year is a meaningless exercise.

If you are a huge supporter of SOPA/PIPA, then tell these same folks what a great job they are doing protecting the rights of whomever.

Jan 13, 20121,084 notes