OK, So SOPA And PIPA Are Both On Hold: Where Do We Go From Here?

from the just-the-beginning dept

There is a rather odd atmosphere within the parts of the online community that fought so hard against SOPA this week – relief that all that work seems to have had an effect, mixed with a certain disbelief that for once the outside world sat up and took notice of the tech world's concerns. Amidst all the justified back-patting, there is a temptation to celebrate the fact that both SOPA and PIPA are "delayed", and to move on.

As Lauren Weinstein points out in an excellent, monitory blog post entitled "Battling Internet Censorship: The Long War", that would be a big mistake:

you might be tempted to assume that the battle is over, the war is won, and that -- as Maxwell Smart used to say -- "Once again the forces of niceness and goodness have triumphed over the forces of evil and rottenness."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the forces arrayed in favor of Internet censorship are not only powerful and well funded, but are in this game for the very long haul indeed. A day of demonstrations to them, as annoying as they may be to these censorship proponents in the very short run, are in the final analysis more like a single human lifetime compared against the centuries.

So the question then becomes, how can a fast-moving industry that is easily distracted by cool hardware and pictures of cats hope to match the lumbering but unswerving attack of the copyright dinosaurs?

One of the key problems is that few within the Internet world know much about how "DC" – the inner circle of US policy-making – really works. One person who does is Christine Paluch, as she explains in this post seconding Weinstein's warning about "The Long War":

Here in DC the long war is not some analogy, it is a way of life. This is a town of strategists and researchers who often lay intellectual groundwork for legislation that gets put into place long after they have moved on to another issue. I should know this, I was one of the researchers, and I worked on a few major issues involving regulatory policy, specifically labor and employment, environmental issues, consumer product safety, and healthcare. It is not very often that somebody sees their work used in laying the groundwork for historic legislation, but the work of me and my fellow researchers was used in a few pieces of historic legislation. It was a part of the long game, one that took over 5 years to completely play out, and I was only there for part of it. I was already left the campaign by the time the legislation went through congress.

She also has some very useful advice for the geek world she now calls her own ("Somehow I was roped in by technologists and they have assimilated me into their development processes"):

in my honest opinion it needs to go beyond a simple censorship campaign, and have a much broader focus. What [Weinstein] is citing is a defensive campaign, but from my own experiences, the best campaigns are not just defensive, but also strategic and proactive. I also think it needs to focus on broader goals for science and technology as well, as I think the SOPA and PIPA campaign are part of a larger pattern that needs to be addressed.

In other words, the tech world really needs to think big on this. The rest of the post is well-worth reading for its information about some of the details of DC policy making; but the central message is very simple:

SOPA and PIPA should not be the end, but rather the beginning. This is the best advice to making technology a larger and permanent force in DC as somebody who at one point was part of this system.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blackouts, copyright, pipa, proactive, protect ip, protests, reform, sopa

The Internet Wins: PIPA & SOPA Delayed

from the there-we-go dept

The writing has been on the wall for a long, long time, but now it's finally official. Harry Reid has announced that he will not move forward with PIPA and Lamar Smith has announced the same thing about SOPA. Both are listed as "delayed" and there's always a chance that they will come back in some form (potentially even nastier), but hopefully those on Capitol Hill have learned a big lesson about trying to mess with the internet... and what happens when you cut backroom deals to help one industry at the expense of the public.

Filed Under: blackouts, internet, lamar smith, patrick leahy, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa

MPAA Uses Anon Attacks To Make Nonsensical Comments About Free Speech

from the a-protest-isn't-gov't-shut-down dept

I'm really beginning to wonder about the MPAA's PR people and their near total inability to think through how their statements will be perceived. It's put out a response to the DDoS attacks from Anonymous by trying to "take back" the moral high ground on the free speech issue. Yes, they're claiming that the DDoS is a free speech violation and then wrap themselves in the First Amendment:

Unfortunately, some groups believe that speech or ideas that they disagree with should be silenced. This could not be more wrong. No matter the point of view, everyone has a right to be heard.

The motion picture and television industry has always been a strong supporter of free speech. We strongly condemn any attempts to silence any groups or individuals.

The Internet is home to creativity, innovation and free speech. We want to keep it that way. Protecting copyrights and protecting free speech go hand in hand."

Ok. So then you condemn SOPA and PIPA, right? Since those are attempts to silence people. But here's the thing: "free speech" issues are about government censorship. Such as passing a bad law that allows the government to take down websites. Having some people protest you may be annoying, but it's not a free speech issue (other than, perhaps, in arguing the protesters' rights to free speech. Trying to regain the high ground on this issue is pretty transparently ridiculous by the MPAA -- and simply calls much more attention to who's actually trying to stifle free speech by passing bad laws that allow for censorship.

Filed Under: anonymous, ddos, first amendment, free speech, protests, seizures
Companies: mpaa

Mocking Blackout Reactions Is Too Easy: Let's Learn From Them Instead

from the stupidity-online?-well-I-never! dept

Unsurprisingly, yesterday's Wikipedia blackout caused a lot of reaction on Twitter. The whole point of a move like this is to shock people, get their attention, and make them start asking questions—and the primary target is those who don't already know about the issue at hand. So it's also unsurprising that some of the reactions were pretty damn stupid. And since there's nothing the internet likes more than making fun of stupid people, it's once again unsurprising that a few different sources decided to catalogue and mock them.

@herpderpedia sprung up to retweet the various freak-outs and desperate pleas of stymied users—mostly students. There's a lot of misdirected anger, with people blaming Obama or denouncing Wikipedia, and a lot of general ignorance: many thought the site had already been shuttered forever, or that the blackout itself was mandated by congress. And since memes are always in their fifth stage of irony for some people while others have yet discover them, there are also quite a few tweets that look like parodies.

But what I see most of all are questions. People are asking why? in huge numbers, and that's fantastic. Granted, a lot of them are directing their questions to the wrong people, and it's not as if all of them are going to use this as a starting point to genuinely learn more about these issues. But some will. And you can bet they'll all be paying more attention to SOPA/PIPA now—not to mention any future legislation that sparks chatter about Wikipedia's Black Wednesday.

Some will say they shouldn't be asking when the blackout page provides plenty of information, but when you look closer you see that several tweets complain about complicated language and unclear explanations, and most are just shouts of extreme frustration (remember, these are all people with a looming deadline on some other project). More importantly, this speaks of broader themes online: people have two primary means of finding information now—search and social—and when one fails, they go to the other. When you want fast facts you Google something then click through to Wikipedia, but when you have a more immediate human need borne of panic—OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO WIKIPEDIA? CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME? Omg [actual tweet]—you turn to your social circles.

But it's the internet, and there will be mockery, and that's fine. I just hope the mockers realize that this isn't like when Kim Jong Il died and some Twitter users thought it was Lil Kim (that was both less excusable and more hilarious). Beneath the surface idiocy, most of these people have been nudged in the right direction by Wikipedia's blackout, even if only slightly—and their reactions provide a lot of insight if you can resist taking the potshots, most of which are too easy anyway.

Now that's out of the way, here are some easy potshots at tweets:

fuck jimmy wales. fuck him and fuck wikipedia. dickhead my works taking ages to do now cos i goota go on so many wesbits.wt a prick.'protest [What sort of company employs a quasi-illiterate to surf Wikipedia all day? I'm genuinely curious]

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? WHY AM I THE LAST TO KNOW WIKIPEDIA IS BLOCKED! I BE ON THERE DAILY!!! [I like that she is less annoyed about losing Wikipedia than she is about the fact nobody told her. I've often thought SOPA/PIPA supporters are just mad because they were the last to find out about free movies.]

I will cry if they shut down Wikipedia forever.. :'( [Why, because you won't be able to look up "sissy"?]

WHY THE FUCK IS MY WIKIPEDIA BEING A BLACK ONE I DIDNT WANT THAT OH GOD IM SO MAD [Swap "Wikipedia" with "President" and this would be the perfect redneck tweet]

I think Wikipedia planned this shit. [Really? I figured it was a typo.]

Gay no Wikipedia!? I was about to search something fucking bitch.. ["The page 'Something fucking bitch' does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered." Incidentally, the first result is "Flavor of Love (season 1)"]

Filed Under: blackouts, informed, learning, mocking, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa, twitter users
Companies: twitter, wikipedia

RIAA Takes MPAA's Condescending Response To Protests Up A Notch

from the true-colors dept

If you thought that the MPAA's obnoxious, tone-deaf and out-of-touch response to the SOPA/PIPA protest blackouts was ridiculous, it appears that Jonathan Lamy, VP of Communications for the RIAA, wanted to take things up a notch by obnoxiously tweeting that perhaps students would be better off with Wikipedia down for the day:

After Wikipedia blackrout, somewhere, a student today is doing original research and getting his/her facts straight. Perish the thought.

Lamy apparently realized what a pompous jerk that made him sound like... and removed the tweet -- but thankfully, the good folks over at Gizmodo already had saved a screenshot, which you now see above.

The MPAA and the RIAA have never been good about doing any kind of communication with "the public." They're just not set up for that kind of thing. They communicate with elected officials and with the press. And that's about the extent of it. Of course, in this situation, where the public is actually paying attention to them... all they're doing is showing off their true colors: condescending, entitled, spoiled brats who are seriously pissed off they're not getting their way. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Filed Under: blackouts, condescension, jonathan lamy, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: riaa

Jon Stewart Now Knows About SOPA/PIPA... And He's Not Impressed

from the hello-fair-use dept

Remember how, based on an audience question, Jon Stewart promised to study up on SOPA/PIPA for a future show. Looks like that happened. And, apparently, he did his homework before Wednesday, so he could actually use Wikipedia. In last night's show, Stewart used yesterday's blackouts and protests as a jumping off point to discuss the bill. There were two main points: (1) Congress is trying to pass laws about an internet they don't understand at all, and (2) fair use is incredibly important, and anything that potentially damages fair use is dangerous to culture. For the first point, he played some clips of Rep. Mel Watt proudly displaying his ignorance of technology -- and then points out that Watt is the ranking member on the IP sub-committee. He also mocks the calls during the markup from various Congressional Reps. to have a hearing with "the nerds" by reminding them that it's not "nerds" they're looking for... it's experts. Something in short supply in Congress. For the second point, he ably uses a ton of short clips, fair use style, to demonstrate how important fair use is to a show like his... while mocking Viacom and its own lawyers for trying to limit fair use. Good stuff all around. And yes, for those people who live in foreign countries that don't have a deal with Viacom, I apologize that you can't see the video below. It's just one more example of how Viacom encourages infringement by not giving people what they want.

Filed Under: blackouts, copyright, fair use, jon stewart, mel watt, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa, the daily show
Companies: viacom

A 'Trustworthy' Social Network For The Occupy Movement: Even If They Build It, Can They Ever Trust It?

from the weakest-link-in-the-chain dept

The role of technology in the wave of protests that swept the world last year is a matter of debate. While some claim that social networks and mobile phones allowed protesters to organize themselves with an unprecedented speed and efficiency, others have seen their role as marginal – or even counterproductive, since these same technologies also allow governments to monitor events with greater ease than in pre-Internet days.

One group aligned with the Occupy movement is situated somewhere in the middle. That is, it recognizes the important role that technology can play, but sees increasing problems with today's social media. The solution, they believe, is to create a new social network specifically aimed at helping protest movements scale up their activities by linking like-minded people around the world:

What we need, at this point, is a platform that allows us to radically democratize our global organizational efforts. In addition to the local squares, we now need a global square where people of all nations can come together as equals to participate in the coordination of collective actions and the formulation of common goals and aspirations. For this reason, we call upon the revolutionary wizkids of the world to unite and assist in the development of a new online platform – The Global Square – that combines the communicative functions of the existing social networks with the political functions of the assemblies to provide crucial new tools for the development of our global movement.

The same post has an interesting list of requirements for such a system, which will be open source. That's certainly wise, since it will allow volunteers to contribute, but it does raise the question: why not use one of the existing open source social networks like identi.ca, elgg, or – perhaps the best-known example – Diaspora?

One of the key differences of the proposed social network from those is the central importance of trust, as this feature on The Global Square in Wired explains:

One challenge that all of the new efforts face is a very difficult one for non-centralized services: ensuring that members are trustworthy. That’s critical for activists who risk injury and arrest in all countries and even death in some. To build trust, local and international networks will use a friend-of-a-friend model in Knutson and Boyer’s projects. People can’t become full members on their own as they can with social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Although that sounds fine in theory, recent events in the UK suggest that it might not help much in practice. A year ago, the Guardian broke a story about a police officer there who, for seven years:

lived deep undercover at the heart of the environmental protest movement, travelling to 22 countries gleaning information and playing a frontline role in some of the most high-profile confrontations

Nor was this an isolated case, as another Guardian story reported:

Five of the seven undercover police officers in the protest movement who have been exposed so far have admitted having or have been alleged to have had sexual relationships with activists they were keeping under surveillance, despite claims by senior police officers that this was banned.

It seems unlikely that employing the "friend-of-a-friend" approach to trust would have kept many of them out of the network.

In fact it's hard to see how any social network technology can get around the problem that undercover agents will always find a way to subvert trust systems by exploiting their weakest points: other people. That means that the real challenge facing The Global Square is not technical – how to keep out spies - but social: how to cope with the fact that you can't.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: occupy, protests, social networks

8 Million People Looked Up Their Elected Officials' Contact Info During Wikipedia Blackout

from the 4.5-million-signed-google-petition dept

Think the blackouts were just a "publicity stunt" that didn't wake up the American people to a serious problem with the legislative process? Wikipedia has now revealed that an astounding eight million people used its tool to look up their elected officials' contact info. It's not yet clear how many actually called, but some information on calls is starting to come out, and it sure sounds like a lot of people called. We heard from multiple Senate staffers that the phones -- both in DC and back home in the district offices -- were ringing non-stop with complaints about the bill. Our own calling widget, care of Engine Advocacy, got a tremendous amount of usage -- including over 2,000 phone calls per minute at peak calling times. Meanwhile, Google's online petition scored 4.5 million signatures... and that's the number that was reported earlier in the day. I'm sure it was higher by the end of the day. Anyone think this isn't a mainstream issue yet? More importantly, can anyone explain why various Senators still want to move forward with this bill?

Filed Under: blackouts, democracy, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: google, wikipedia

Best Congressional Response To SOPA Yet? Rep. Bruce Braley Takes To *CENSORED* To Explain His *CENSORED*

from the you-win-1000-internets dept

Lots of folks in Congress have been speaking out about SOPA and PIPA today -- and what's fascinating is how many of them are actually using key internet innovations to do so. Most of the comments we've seen were first made on Twitter and Facebook. But the best response (and by best, we mean funniest) response we've seen today comes from Rep. Bruce Braley from Iowa. You just have to watch the video to see:

Filed Under: blackouts, bruce braley, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa

Yet More Collateral Damage From SOPA/PIPA: Activism Through Satire

from the you-can't-say-that dept

Among the many high-profile organizations that are joining the SOPA blackout today is Greenpeace. That's great, except that you can't read an important post on the Greenpeace UK web site about why it is opposing SOPA and PIPA (it should be available at 5 pm PST from the home page or here.)

Quite naturally Greenpeace looks at the SOPA/PIPA legislation from the perspective of an extremely successful activist organization – and it doesn't like what it sees. That's because of the way it works against some of the biggest and most powerful businesses in the world - by turning their own words and brands against them:

We use corporations' own language, their own marketing, their own strength against them - which is sometimes the only way that an entirely supporter-funded operation like ours can afford to put a spotlight on the negative side of their operations.

Thing is, while court case after court case has agreed with us that parody is a protected form of free speech, the corporations at the pointy end of our parodies tend to disagree. Exxon/Esso took us to court in France over alleged copyright infringement of their logo when we launched a campaign against them:

Esso said we were in violation of their intellectual property rights. We said it was free speech. The court agreed with us, and in an historic decision, we won. But had that decision been left to Exxon/Esso, we would have been shut down.

Nestlé's Kit Kat brand famously failed when it attempted to have our spoof video featuring its brand - and critical of their support for rainforest destruction - removed from YouTube for trademark violation. Hundreds of our supporters reposted the video on other sites and their own Facebook profiles.

Greenpeace certainly isn't alone in deploying mockery online to needle companies about the things they'd rather keep quiet: it's particularly effective for smaller groups that can't afford expensive, conventional campaigns. But such satire frequently depends upon using authentic elements from the marketing materials of the organizations they tackle. The extremely broad framing of SOPA/PIPA means that the large, well-lawyered enterprises of the world will have powerful new weapons for suppressing this kind of protest by claiming that their intellectual property is being harmed as a result.

The penalties are so disproportionate – losing access to the main payment systems would cripple any supporter-funded group – that few would take the chance of having SOPA/PIPA invoked against them. The end result would be more cautious, less exciting – and less successful – campaigns in the future. Small wonder, then, that no multinationals outside the Internet industry have come out against SOPA or PIPA.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: activism, blackouts, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: greenpeace