Reddit Turns Its Attention To Politics: Seeking Supporters Of SOPA & NDAA To Unseat

from the the-internet-awakens? dept

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Following its ability to build up enough grassroots support to get GoDaddy to change its position (if not its mind) on SOPA & PIPA, it appears the Reddit community wants to see if it can do the same thing with some politicians. Earlier this week, we had asked who would be the first politician to be "GoDaddy'd" and it appears that the Reddit community has already jumped onto that challenge. It's been rather fascinating to watch over the past few days as the amorphous crowd self-organized and set up its own rules over who to focus on and why. They've decided to focus on politicians who supported both NDAA (the controversial bill that crystallizes the government's ability to detain Americans without trial) and SOPA/PIPA. They also want to pick one politician from each major party , to keep this from being a partisan thing. Separately, they've been seeking out politicians who may actually be vulnerable... and trying to vet their opponents to make sure who gets elected in their place isn'tSo far, the community has focused in on Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee as its main Republican target (there have been a few others listed as well), but doesn't seem to have settled on a Democratic target yet.I still think that a lot of this will depend heavily on who is challenging these politicians, and if they're willing to make a campaign issue out of these free speech/civil liberties issues. It'll definitely be tough to unseat incumbents, but even if the internet community can make it into an actual fight, politicians will start to take notice. And, even if it fails this time around, watch out for what comes next. Like many "open" systems, the first version may not be pretty, the second version may be a little buggy, but once you get around to the third version and beyond, they often start being a lot more powerful than anyone expects. Politicians who underestimate the community of folks at Reddit and similar sites may be in for a surprise before too long...

Filed Under: bob corker, community, ndaa, pipa, politics, protect ip, sopa

Companies: reddit