We're making history over here!
Earlier today, from 8 AM to 8 PM eastern time, I joined thousands of sites and blogs in protesting two controversial bills that are in consideration in the United States Congress, SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives), and PIPA (the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate).
I typically avoid political subjects here, since I prefer to keep things light-hearted and family-friendly on the GradBlog (co-hosted with Barry’s cooking adventures). However, even though I’m busy with research and classes at the moment, I figured the best way I could help support the worldwide protest today was by painting my little corner of the Internet black. And since WordPress.com added an option for me to join the fight, I happily did so. You’ll see a cute little ribbon in the top-right of the blog as well until the 24th of January.
So instead, I’d like to report all of the fun things I saw online during the Internet-wide blackout. First and foremost, I went to see Wikipedia, since they promised that they would black out for the day, and would probably be the most visible to the layperson on the Internet. I was surprised when I discovered I could still use their site. As it turns out, their blackout was powered by Javascript, so since I browse the web using NoScript (which everyone should use), I didn’t see the effects. However, many others, such a poor students on Windows-powered school machines did. So they saw it.
Google was more subtle. Being probably the most accessed website in the world, they were bound to get a few clicks for what they were talking about, perhaps from politically savvy (but technically clueless) folks. They put a cute censor box across their logo like they do for their usual Google Doodles. It was low-key and didn’t get in the way, but if anyone clicked the logo and saw the infographic, they did their job. So they saw it.
deviantArt didn’t do much, but they put a button where they normally put their advertisements prompting users to go to discussion to talk about both sides of the SOPA issue. I didn’t actually read the discussion because the commenting system on dA doesn’t handle long threads very well. There were over 2000 comments on that debate. So they saw it.
Heck, even the My Little Pony fan-site Equestria Daily put censor bars in their header image, showing that even niche sites were willing to tell their users “Hey. This is important.” All of these people saw these protests. It may have only been a little hiccup – it certainly could have used some more backing – but it shows that when different sites work together, we can put forth information.
“Nerd-sites” like Reddit, identi.ca, GNU, the FSF, and the like all went down… not so much to inform their users, but more for solidarity. I’m willing to bet that anyone who has these sites in their favorites was aware of SOPA and PIPA way back when they were first being considered. By standing strong with each other, it helps keep morale up to continue fighting the good fight. This is why I blacked out my site, since I didn’t expect to sway anyone’s opinion, but by standing with the others, it makes things a bit less rough.
So did you do anything special for the blackout today?
