While the Herperpedia Twitter feed I linked a couple days ago didn’t offer much encouragement as to the effectiveness of the SOPA blackout (see previous rant), this image from TechCrunch does…
…and that’s something I think we can all be a little bit thankful for.
Fuck.
It looks like I might’ve been right.
At least if this twitter feed chronicling “OMFG WIKIPEDIA IS DOWN” tweets is any indicator…
If you’re wondering which post I’m talking about, clickest thou hither. Bring a lunch… it’s a long read.
I’m going to make a bold prediction.
I’m going to predict that these SOPA blackouts that are slated to begin in 3(ish) hours backfire.
I don’t know… maybe I’ve just become jaded in my old age, but something in the pit of my stomach tells me that there are going to be unintended consequences attached to this event. There are two potential disaster scenarios that I hope I can quantify in words below.
(Aside: In my musings today I use SOPA as shorthand for SOPA and PROTECT IP below — two different bills with much the same effect. I realize that PROTECT IP can be abbreviated as PIPA, but that acronym is, to put it as politely as possible, fucking stupid so I refuse to use it.)
On the Interwebs, there are two types of people. Those of us who understand what SOPA is and what impact it will have, and those of us who don’t. Granted, there is a third group of people who understand what SOPA is and supports it, but those people are either evil (MPAA/RIAA) or not on the Internet (Government), so they shall find no quarter within this soliloquy.
These SOPA blackouts do nothing to benefit the first group. We’re already singing in the choir, and no amount of awareness-raising is going to make us sing any louder than we already are. Group the first is not who worries me.
Group the second, however, does. These are the casual browsers. These are the people for whom the Internet is simply another channel on the TV, albeit a channel with an abundance of free porn. My principal concern with this group is that an overt campaign such as the SOPA blackout will make this group (wrongfully) associate the anti-SOPA movement as “the reason why the Internet was broken for 24 hours.”
I fully expect my mother to go online and, in a few hours, try to look something up on Wikipedia. Mind you, my mother is a highly intelligent person; rational and understanding. However, God bless her, she has the technical aptitude of a sack of hammers. I fully expect that when she goes to look up the aforementioned “thing”, upon being greeted by the SOPA blackout the first words to breach the otherwise impenetrable bulwark of her rational and mild-mannered mouth will be something along the lines of:
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!”
It is at that point, I fear, we lose the battle. We certainly lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the lay Internet users who are not as of yet familiar, or only casually familiar with the threat that SOPA poses to our personal liberties. Now, I fully expect that I could explain SOPA to my mother and, due to the aforementioned rationality and intelligence, she would be able to at least be able to understand why it is a bad thing, without really needing to be bogged down by technical detail. The same, I believe, could be said for most of the people in the second group… I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, I believe that these SOPA blackouts fail to achieve this.
It is a rare occasion where understanding rises from confrontation, which is what has me gravely concerned.
(On second thought, SOPA is a pretty fucking stupid acronym as well. Oh well, I’ve already written half of this diatribe; there’s no going back now…)
To my second point, and quite possibly (or be that hopefully) the weaker of the two. The Internet has, for better or for worse, become an engine of commerce. Millions upon millions of dollars change hand every day on the Internet. The carriers that provide bandwidth, the servers that host the sites, the software that powers them, the developers and designers who create them — all these things cost money.
My concern here is that, by participating in the SOPA blackouts, the participants may be damaging their short and long-term ability to generate revenue. Let’s explore two possible ways this could happen.
We start with a real-world example: Wikipedia. This site lives and dies based on the generosity of its users. Unfortunately, it’s human nature for generosity to lead to a sense of entitlement, and that’s where I start to worry. My concern is that donors to Wikipedia (mostly people who fit into group two as described above) may take exception to the fact that “their” Wikipedia is unavailable to them, eliciting a reaction similar to the theoretical reaction from my mother:
“WHAT THE FUCK AM I GIVING THEM MONEY FOR?!”
I’d be really curious to look six months from now at their monthly donation intake and see which way the scale slides. I hope that I’m wrong about this, but seeing Wikipedia’s donations drop as a result of this blackout would not come as a shock to me.
Second example, not real world: Huffington Post. I’m calling this a “not real world” example as I’m not sure whether or not they’re participating in the blackout. I’m not entirely sure what their primary revenue source is, since I really don’t go to HuffPo very often. I’m simply using HuffPo as a literary device here. Feel free to ruthlessly mock anyone who comments below and didn’t read this (assuming someone comments).
I can only assume that the bulk of their revenue is through advertising. Online advertising is a cutthroat business. Advertisers have certain metrics to meet with their ads in order to satisfy their clients, and any interruption in their supply chain can cost them big money. So, following the theoretical reaction trend that has been firmly established in this post twice before, I can only imagine the head of a large hither-to-unnamed online advertising agency may see a highly-trafficked website participate in the SOPA blackout and say something to the effect of…
“WHAT THE FUCK AM I PAYING THEM FOR?!”
…and take their ads elsewhere, thus depriving the site of revenue.
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I’ll emphasize this: I HOPE I’m wrong. I HOPE the SOPA blackout serves its purpose. I hope it raises awareness among the majority of lay Internet users. I HOPE people start taking to the phones and to e-mail and to Twitter and Facebook and wherever they can to get the word out. I HOPE people start talking to friends and neighbors about SOPA. It’s that important of an issue, and I HOPE that this time, it’s different.
If history is any guide, however, my skepticism is justified.
Greetings associates.
Just a quick reminder… if you get totally piss drunk tonight, please don’t drive.
I just drove past three motorcycles piled atop one another at the intersection of Flamingo and Rainbow here in lovely Las Vegas. I don’t know if alcohol was involved there, and I wasn’t about to pull over and ask Metro (it looked like they had enough to deal with), but even if not it’s a good reminder just how dangerous a place the roads can be even if there aren’t drunks all over the place.
Call 1-800-222-4537 for the AAA Tipsy-Tow service. That way you won’t be celebrating New Years in a jail cell, hospital, or morgue.
A conversation between a father and his son…
Son: “Daddy, who was president when you were born?”
Father: “Jimmy Carter”
Son: “Was Jimmy Carter a good president?”
Father: “No, he wasn’t a very good president at all.”
Son: “So he was kinda like Obama, right?”
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Machiavel, The Jew of Malta, “Prologue” Written by Christopher Marlowe |
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