How big of a deal is this PIPA shit?

[ronin sparthos]

I've maintained that people bitching about politics but never doing anything to fix the situation are at fault for much of the issues we see today. If you consider the decision to "blackout" most of these sites, you'll understand that my point is well supported. With the exception of *possibly* wikipedia, why would blacking out any of these sites be problematic for politicians? If you wanted a blackout to affect politicians, google, facebook, and twitter are required. So who is this really hurting? The citizens most likely to oppose this legislation from the start. How is this effective in preventing legislation? As one person mentioned earlier, this is effective because site-lockdown with the inclusion of zipcode look up semi-forcefully pushes people to take action. In other words, site-lockdown tells lazy people to unlazy-the-fuck-up. In short, if people stopped acting like they're some sort of rebel for opposing politics or actually participated, most of this would have been avoided to begin with. You, if these descriptions apply to you, are responsible for society's problems.

What do you consider 'doing something' about the situation? Protesting? Rallying the troops and staging demonstrations in D.C? The fact is while many people can see the glaring problems with our system of lobbyists and corporate money drowning out the will of the people but you can't do very much when the people you protest can arbitrarily shut down your attempts to create change for virtually anything.

"Oh sir, you don't have a permit. Disperse or go to jail."

"Participating" (voting to vote) in politics doesn't change the fact that big money forces own Washington unless you mean by participating organizing more OWS-style protests against our leadership which will no doubt happen sometime in the future. Elected officials can't red tape the masses of the internet collectively raging about their sites being down but they can easily shut down any small-scale demonstrations championed by those in the know. Simple tactics really. Pressure the masses to do something or what they enjoy daily will become a thing of the past.

I doubt PIPA will go anywhere but I think the fact that the lobbyists are trying to infringe upon the one realm most young-folk are addicted to is great because it is almost assuredly going to rile people up and drive them to action precisely because it strikes so close to home.

Violence is all that awaits if such a bill like PIPA were to pass as people are addicted to this virtual world. I can't login into Facebook? Hm, guess I'll trash my congressman's office instead.

[Pyro]

I doubt PIPA will go anywhere but I think the fact that the lobbyists are trying to infringe upon the one realm most young-folk are addicted to is great because it is almost assuredly going to rile people up and drive them to action precisely because it strikes so close to home.

http://puu.sh/dMcY

http://puu.sh/dMd7

This right here tells me that most young people on the internet don't even know what SOPA or PIPA is. Let alone how it will affect them.

[Not Kuno]

This right here tells me that most young people on the internet don't even know what SOPA or PIPA is. Let alone how it will affect them.

The best were the people going "What does Wikipedia have against soap?"

[Pikarya]

http://puu.sh/dOfI

Today I learned how fucking retarded 90% of my old friends from high school really are.

[Hatedregret]

Noticed today that google has it's main page name blacked out as well as all um... adult sites. Now they're really trying to reach the masses.

[Pyro]

God dammit, wimp.com blacked out his site too. I didn't give a shit about anything being blacked out until this very moment...

[Meresgi]

I always thought we elected them to make decisions for us, not to exactly represent the will of the people. It's the people that need to elect some one who they feel would represent them well, and if they don't then they elect some one different. Subtle difference, and it doesn't help when they lie and break promises, but that's another problem entirely.

Well one of the major roadblocks to this is the fact that they can basically reassign their districts to almost 100% guarantee them re-election because 95% of voters vote based on party and not ideals or promises and they know that. Hell for the most part, people who go to vote only do so for their party and their views, some don't even know who they are voting for but they know they are Republican/Democrat so they get the vote because "They obviously have the same views as me, they are the same party!".

It's a fucked up thing, but no one educates themselves really on politicians, the media does its best to be as biased as fuck, and then when you have to vote between Guy A who is going to rape your wife then steal your money, or Guy B who is going to steal your money then rape your wife..who the fuck do you vote for?

[Silenka]

It's mind-boggling to me how many people take their computers and the internet for granted, like they have and always will be around for people's convenience. Yet when their computer breaks because they never learned how to take care of it, or when sites are blacked out in protest, all they can say is 'hurrdurr, this isn't fair, why does this have to happen to me'. It's sad, really.

[Milkster]

Porn websites are starting to join in now. Shit just got real.

[Kerberoz]

Porn websites are starting to join in now. Shit just got real.

None of my usuals... damn, thought I might get some work done.

Also it's fucking pathetic how many self-proclaimed "geeks" don't even know how to disable scripts, or do anything that doesn't involve pinch-to-zoom.

[Cantih]

Nice.

[kuronosan]

People on facebook starting to censor their own posts. The lulz begins.

[SephYuyX]

Ah, sucks, even though you can read wiki, theyve restricted the ability to edit.

[Byrd]

People on facebook starting to censor their own posts. The lulz begins.

If they really wanted the masses to take notice beyond a casual "That's inconvenient," they'd black out Facebook for a day. Imagine the amount of virtual potatoes that would die in Farmville and the resulting outrage.

It has been kind of eye-opening to notice how often I check Wikipedia every day, because I keep getting hit with that. (Yes, I know I can circumvent it, but I'm observing the principle of the message since I'm at work and pretending to try to get work done).

[ronin sparthos]

This right here tells me that most young people on the internet don't even know what SOPA or PIPA is. Let alone how it will affect them.

Yet if these laws were to pass, shit would get real and that's what I am getting at. People are so addicted to sites like Youtube and Facebook that they simply could not avoid the inevitable void that this law would put in their lives. Most people are still in apathy mode because PIPA and SOPA haven't come to fruition but if and when it did happen the repercussions would be swift and violent. People are already living through tough times and to have a source of entertainment and an escape taken away from them would be the last straw.

Do you really think that people would take a censored internet lying down? For other laws I'd say yeah but being unable to visit something over a copyright infringement would bring out the latent rage in even the most clueless internet denizen.

"What the fuck, I can't show off my abs on Facebook and brag to my friends??"
"I can't watch the latest episode of Jersey Shore because of what?!"
"What's this? BG is down because someone put up a walkthrough of a new game? To the riotmobile!"

This is precisely why I believe these laws will never make it though I do not believe that is any reason to not spread the word and write an email to your local moron politician.

[Furtwangler]

That Twitter feed about Wikipedia made me not want to live on this planet anymore. People's ignorance, especially younger ones, makes me really sad inside.

On an unrelated note, we have a circlejerk message from Islafap about donation (which is going great, so I see no need to frontpage it). I feel BG of all places could manage a little banner or info about how to contact someone, or like to wiki, or something - for the few on here who don't know what the fuck (because it stands to reason there are quite a few).

[drwaffles]

It's definitely still worth trying to nip the problem in the bud. Even if SOPA were eventually amended due to the outcry over censorship that would result from it being passed in its current form, imagine how much damage it could do to the internet as we know it in the time it would take for the general public to cotton on and get angry.

[Conrad]

Has anyone here written or called their legislators about this? I called my Congressman and both Senators today. My Congressman "strongly opposes" the bill and will vote against it. Of my Senators, one has a full voice mailbox (lol) and the other supports PIPA. The secretary with whom I spoke told me that my Senator is already reconsidering his support of the bill due to the influx of calls he's received today, and is working with Senator Leahy (the sponsor of PIPA) to make changes that are acceptable to his constituency.

If you want to look at who supports and opposes what, and get the phone numbers to call your Representative/Senators:

http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

[GoggleHead]

The thing that worries me is that this will get swept under the rug for a few months and then sneak through as a less outrageous, but still damaging piece of legislation. They're not axing the bill from what I've read, just setting it on the shelf for a while.

[Callisto]

It has been kind of eye-opening to notice how often I check Wikipedia every day, because I keep getting hit with that. (Yes, I know I can circumvent it, but I'm observing the principle of the message since I'm at work and pretending to try to get work done).

Dear god this, when I read last night it'd be down today I grossly underestimated how much I rely on it on a daily basis. I hope they take google down for a day in a similar manner.