I mean I get the idea: this is what could happen permanantely and not just one day, but shutting your website down does not actually do anything except hurt yourself. Like "I'm going to kill myself if you don't change your bill."

They said it more or less worked for this guy:

Taking down your own website is a form of passive resistance, much in the sense of a hunger strike.

About this being a "dumb idea", refer to the father of passive resistance: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".

The moment you perceive this as "dumb", we're already at step 2 without you realizing. As you get angry, we're at step 3.

The problem is, none of the web site owners taking down their websites will have the nerve (or will be able to afford) to persist to step 4. Which, truly, is the one dumb thing, because it makes the entire endeavour obsolete. At best, people will talk about SOPA for a day, and then the music plays on.

Taking down your own website is a form of passive resistance, much in the sense of a hunger strike.

About this being a "dumb idea", refer to the father of passive resistance: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".

The moment you perceive this as "dumb", we're already at step 2 without you realizing. As you get angry, we're at step 3.

The problem is, none of the web site owners taking down their websites will have the nerve (or will be able to afford) to persist to step 4. Which, truly, is the one dumb thing, because it makes the entire endeavour obsolete. At best, people will talk about SOPA for a day, and then the music plays on.

How do you mean - I'm not sure what "step 4" is in this analogy? I mean, surely winning is what people against SOPA wants?

If you mean they won't do anything else after this, I don't see that's true at all. I'm sure people and organisations against it will continue to do what they can, though ultimately it's only the politicians who have the final decision.

If you mean they won't do anything else after this, I don't see that's true at all. I'm sure people and organisations against it will continue to do what they can, though ultimately it's only the politicians who have the final decision.

I'm sure certain people and organisations will fight against it, but the question is, is it enough? There are a few things to consider here. One, is the person/organisation two-faced? Are they publicly fighting it, but privately accepting it? Two, is the person/organisation going to be exempted from it? (This could potentially lead to #1). Three, even if SOPA and PIPA are killed off, all it takes is for a much more gradual and stealthy introduction of portions of the bill to be introduced. Tie in internet censorship to a hurricane relief bill, tax reduction bill, etc. Don't introduce the full bill at once, but through time.

I guess I'm much more pessimistic about the outcome of this blackout than the rest of you (as I see internet censorship of this type as an eventuality of reality).

How do you mean - I'm not sure what "step 4" is in this analogy? I mean, surely winning is what people against SOPA wants?

"Winning" means that the public pressure is so high that politicans seem urged to take it back. Which, and no offense intended, won't be the case if some geeks take down their website for a day and some other geeks make a few forum posts about how unhappy they are about it. Nobody really cares what you or I have to say.

"Winning" would be 100,000 angry people in the streets of Washington DC for three days because their preferred socializing website showed "closed for SOPA" for the last 3 weeks. Politicans are stupid like shit. If 100,000 people are in the street (which is less than 0.1% of the population), politicans believe that "the people" will revolt tomorrow, a civil war will break out, and they will probably end up hung, drawn, and quartered on the market place. Thus they do what "the people" wants. This is how Germany went out of nuclear energy.

"Winning" would also be if one or several major, high-profile sites on the scale of Slashdot, Amazon, or CNN shut down for a week, to show solidarism. Though of course we know this is not going to happen for business reasons.

Yeah just like all of those people who protested their workplaces by not working. Not only is this pointless, it only hurts themselves because they lost the wages they would have earned. They would be better off working, then sending a letter to their congressmen on their break. These kind of strikes have never accomplished anything. Oh wait a minute...

Yeah just like all of those people who protested their workplaces by not working. Not only is this pointless, it only hurts themselves because they lost the wages they would have earned. They would be better off working, then sending a letter to their congressmen on their break. These kind of strikes have never accomplished anything. Oh wait a minute...

The problem with this example is that if people stop working then the company suffers, loses money and thus are forced to come to some sort of settlement over time.

Wikipedia goes down and the net effect on the people drafting the bills is....? Well, you tell me...

Passive resistance and strikes only make a difference when they impact the people involved on both sides; wiki being down is going to have no impact on those wanting to draft the bill thus from that point of view is pointless.

For the general 'non-geek' population this is likely to cause an annoyance more than anything; they'll see some text and either ignore it and complain about the site being down or read it, not understand and then complain about the site being down. The population simply isn't well versed enough in technology to realise the problem.

And finally, we get to the point that a vast majority of users cant make a difference at all. Living in the UK all this 'blackout' is to me is a mild annoyance which ends when I wake up tomorrow. I can do nothing to adjust the outcome of what is going on in the US (and the last time people in the UK decided to voice an opinion on US politics that I recall was back in a presidental election when we basically got told to STFU and keep out of it... mmmm).

In short as bad as I'm sure this is being in another country with no say on the matter I currently simply don't care and just have to live this with mild annoyance. A position most of the users in the world are in.

And finally, we get to the point that a vast majority of users cant make a difference at all. Living in the UK all this 'blackout' is to me is a mild annoyance which ends when I wake up tomorrow. I can do nothing to adjust the outcome of what is going on in the US (and the last time people in the UK decided to voice an opinion on US politics that I recall was back in a presidental election when we basically got told to STFU and keep out of it... mmmm).

In short as bad as I'm sure this is being in another country with no say on the matter I currently simply don't care and just have to live this with mild annoyance. A position most of the users in the world are in.

While I am aware that not being in the US makes it fairly simple for you to ignore a lot of SOPA, SOPA passing severely impacts the integrity of the internet that would probably lead to similar legislation in many other first world countries.

No, not being able to affect the passing of the bill in anyway makes it easy for me to ignore it... or would have if a bunch of websites hadn't decided to inconvinence the rest of the world over it...

(And to give you an idea; the estimated population of Europe is approx. twice that of the US, so just taking those two areas alone into consideration this protest does nothing more than inconvinence two people for ever 1 it eduates (assuming they get educated, see earlier reply for thoughts on that). Expand this to other countries/areas with high internet usage/pentration and the ratio drops even further.)

(And to give you an idea; the estimated population of Europe is approx. twice that of the US, so just taking those two areas alone into consideration this protest does nothing more than inconvinence two people for ever 1 it eduates (assuming they get educated, see earlier reply for thoughts on that). Expand this to other countries/areas with high internet usage/pentration and the ratio drops even further.)

http://www.internetw...s.com/top20.htm
The American internet market is approximately the same size as the entirety of europe's.

Clearly if the website's didn't feel the legislation affected their sustainability they wouldn't be protesting. Is your inconvenience for 12 hours more important than the continued sustainability of your favorite websites?

edit: Being the second largest internet base in a single country with the largest already enforcing heavy restrictions on the internet, and the next largest being half as large makes any legislation very important to anybody with any interest in the sustainability internet technologies.