People Realizing That It Wasn't Google Lobbying That Stopped PIPA/SOPA

from the about-time dept

Rather, the protest was decentralized and organic. The tsunami of opposition transcended political divides, with extensive participation from individuals and groups on both the left and the right. It was driven by a commonality of interest in the continued vitality of social networking and "user-generated content" sites – an interest broadly and actively shared by both rank-and-file Internet users and the technology innovation community (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, technology companies, bloggers, established Internet advocacy groups like CDT and Public Knowledge and savvy new online grassroots organizations).



Those social networking tools enabled that common interest to be harnessed to the common purpose of defeating PIPA and SOPA. This online uprising was not a "tactic". MPAA Chairman Christopher Dodd told the New York Times that "one of the lessons learned" during this event is that the 2-plus million people working in the film industry "need to pipe up," as the Times put it. But Internet users are not "astroturf" and the notion that next time the content community just needs to get its own Internet campaign is entirely the wrong message to take away from this seminal event.

The dramatic online mobilization carries lasting implications for Internet policy.

A more cautious approach requires a more open process.

Ignorance about how the Internet works is no longer an option.

Overreaching Internet-related legislation is no longer a successful strategy.

The Internet community is borderless, and the whole world will be watching.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

We've been pointing out for a few weeks now just how ridiculous the narrative is that it was "Google lobbying" that stopped SOPA and PIPA from moving forward. Having been involved in much of what happened, Ithat it really was much more about the internet rising up and speaking out. Thankfully, the press reports are starting to reflect that reality. IDG reporter Grant Gross recently had a pretty thorough breakdown of what happened and how it happened that is pretty accurate from what I saw. It notes, in true internet fashion, that while there was coordination, there was no top-down effort -- and the "big tech companies" that Hollywood and other SOPA/PIPA supporters want to blame actually came pretty late to the party. Nearly all of the efforts were driven by various grassroots groups or communities (especially Reddit), who took matters into their own hands and decided to pinpoint certain days to focus on. There was plenty of coordination among the different groups, but it really was a very, very loose coalition, where ideas would bubble up, and some would jump onto them while others would float by. If people want to understand how it happened, focusing on the big tech companies would be the exact wrong place to look.Meanwhile, Leslie Harris from CDT (who was among those who participated in the effort) has written an interesting article for ABC News that pulls out many of the key lessons from the SOPA/PIPA fight ... starting with the fact that this wasn't a top-down operation driven by Google or any other party.Harris' piece goes on to make some other key points:I think there are many lessons to be learned from what happened over the past few months, but if you're trying to understand it, these are a good place to start.

Filed Under: activism, pipa, sopa

Companies: google, wikipedia