Go Dark for SOPA

[kainalu]

posted on January 14th, 2012, 10:08 pm

Last edited by kainalu on January 14th, 2012, 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

On January 18, several web sites are going dark for 12HRS to protest SOPA, the new bill that the US Senate wants to pass. If this law passes, most user content sites will end up shutting down. This includes Wikipedia, Reddit, Slashdot, and even possibly Fleet Ops. It will completely change the internet for the worse. Even if it passes, it will not stop piracy in the least. Help support the movement against this bill, and save our internet!

Would Fleet Operations be interested in joining Reddit, Minecraft, Craigslist, and others in going dark for the protest?

Articles about SOPA rottenness :
The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas | Techdirt
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files ... SOPA_0.pdf
“Wow, I had no clue SOPA was such a bad idea…”

EDIT : Myles is right!

posted on January 14th, 2012, 10:15 pm

isn't reddit/wikipedia only going out for 12 hours not a week?

posted on January 14th, 2012, 10:26 pm

Huh, I had read on slashdot it was one week. Had an article and everything. I closed the page though, and cant find it in the jumble. Fixed in description above. Thanks Myles.

posted on January 14th, 2012, 10:33 pm

fleetops joining it would be good, i'm guessing google will collect a statistic on how many sites join the blackout, so every contributor helps.

the blackout really needs someone like google to join it though.

posted on January 14th, 2012, 10:41 pm

The purpose of the shut-downs is to raise awareness of the bill. Google going down would get the message to countless people that otherwise would not see it in time. The major news outlets here in US are all owned by the same media companies that push these bills, so SOPA never sees any air time.

In this light, Google would be epic. Replace the search page with a notice of why they are down. People would definitely see that!

posted on January 14th, 2012, 11:08 pm

honestly though, if Wikipedia does it that will be enough.  Unless Google has all of their pages cached and it still allows people to read it...

They're not actually going down, right?  They should replace their site with a message about SOPA or something rather than simply shut down their servers.  Large amounts of their content is cached and would still be accessible if they did that.

By the way, I haven't actually read the plan or anything so I may have just said something that sounds stupid.

posted on January 14th, 2012, 11:32 pm

yeah they're replacing the content with an anti sopa message and links to anti sopa material. they're not just gonna turn it off.

but the content/services will be inaccessible.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 1:22 am

I don't think that taking FO down for 12 hrs will have enough impact to justify the effort. Nice thought, but we aren't exactly Google here.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 1:41 am

It said FO joining the ones protesting to increase numbers, not FO trying to make a difference alone.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 7:47 am

And I said that taking the site down to add that one number isn't worth it. I passionately hate SOPA, but congressmen won't care about sites that they don't use. They're inept simpletons.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 8:50 am

Why should we care about an US law? This is a matter of the ppl in US...and If they vote for stupid politicians they should respect their decisions as well - alone.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 8:56 am

I won't tell you to care, but I might be caught smirking a little when your own stupid politicians screw you over - if they haven't already.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 9:27 am

Why should we care about an US law? This is a matter of the ppl in US...and If they vote for stupid politicians they should respect their decisions as well - alone.

And that we doesn't include a lot of US players / staff? And we (europeans) never had corrupt or retarded politicians... right. My facepalm level about your post is beyond scale.

yeah they're replacing the content with an anti sopa message and links to anti sopa material. they're not just gonna turn it off.

but the content/services will be inaccessible.

Good idea. Even the "small" FO site should take part.

just my 2 cents.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 12:26 pm

about whether sopa is a usa only thing. the law may be usa only, but the effects will be worldwide due to the fact that the internet is connected so much.

the blocking will mean that usa internet users wont be able to access the blocked site, which will reduce ad revenue for the blocked site. in fleetops case it will also stop usa players joining us. they may not be the primary players of fleetops, but they exist as well.

large scale english language websites need to be able to market to the entire english lanaguage internet, if sopa gets put in, it would split the english lanaguage internet into 2, and future startups wont make it. if sopa was law then sites like youtube would likely never made it big, as the big media companies don't make much money from youtube. as it is dmca takes things too far and results in plenty of reasonable videos being summarily taken down by the cowards at youtube.

posted on January 15th, 2012, 12:28 pm

Why should we care about an US law? This is a matter of the ppl in US...and If they vote for stupid politicians they should respect their decisions as well - alone.

That's not exactly true - many sites not based in US are still dependant on paypall or similar services, which are based in US. This bill will give the state authority to force those service providers to stop providing the service - effectively shutting down the site. First targets will be propably Piratebay and Wikileaks. Technicaly speaking if US decides that it wants a given site to go down (correct me if I am wrong), it could just cooperate with ICANN and delete given dns entry on their servers (or replace it) - it's just tricky from the point of view of international law (shutting down foreign country's website isn't nice - they might even prostest and make funny faces).
US laws have a lot of impact on foreign countries (US is just to big to be ignored), not to mention that Europe might sooner or later "import" some parts of this.

I don't think that taking FO down for 12 hrs will have enough impact to justify the effort. Nice thought, but we aren't exactly Google here.

If every small site thinks like this, then no small site will join the action.