Aftermath of Wikipedia Blackout

We're thinking ... a moment of your time please

Watching the press over the weekend since the blackout on the 18th its been interesting to see what people made of it all.

The expectation was that without protest there was a real risk of the US Senate passing what by all admissions was a knee jerk and highly contentious piece of legalisation ... not to mention seemingly heavily promoted by self interested media companies and brand owners.

"The legislation has broad support from organizations that rely on copyright, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Macmillan US, Viacom, and various other companies and unions in the cable, movie, and music industries. Supporters also include trademark-dependent companies such as Nike, L'Oréal, and Acushnet Company.", see Wikipedia:Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

Wednesday the 18th blackout was aimed to generate press against SOPA, and as predicted it did just that.

1. Press articles from: news.yahoo.com, bbc.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, forbes.com, mashable.com, msnbc.msn.com guardian.co.uk, economist.com
2. Key supporters backed out (rescinded):  x13 Senators, Nintendo, Sony, EA, GoDaddy, etc. See also: forbes.com, thetechgame.com
3. Huge number of people engages with the blackout
   • Google's anti-SOPA petition attracted 4.5 million signature
   • Twitter says there were 2.4 million SOPA-related Tweets between 12am-4pm 19th #factswithoutwikipedia
   • Mark Zuckerberg's anti-SOPA post on Facebook clocked 528,628 likes and 98,701 shares as of the 23rd
     
   • @jimmy_wales - tweeted: Update! 8 million in US looked up Congressional phone numbers. 162 million worldwide saw the blackout page!
   • Zscaler.com - reports the number of unique visitors to Wikipedia was noticeably increased during the blackout
   • blog.mozilla.com - Ultimately, 360,000 emails were sent by Mozillians to members of Congress, contributing a third of all the emails generated by EFF's campaign site
4. Unexpected students complaints due to the Wikipedia blackout. 
   
   • twitter.com - "OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO WIKIPEDIA" 
   • iamliam Liam Mulshine - OMG WTF happened to Wikipedia?! My paper on the history of terribly devised legislative bills is due today! 
   • washingtonpost.com - SOPA blackout has some students floundering, others unfazed
   • theprovince.com - Local students try to survive SOPA blackout
   • techdirt.com - Mocking Blackout Reactions Is Too Easy: Let's Learn From Them Instead
   • twitter.com/#!/herpderpedia - collection of tweets 
5. Post on lifehacker.com about how to make Wikipedia work while the blackout is in place!!!

nb. re the student complaints ... i find it somewhat amusing that those students who have grown up in the digital age weren't shouting at each other how to work around the blackout. Two simple options (1) use google cache; or (2) turn off javascript.

To put all this action into context, the following table illustrates members of Congress's Positions on SOPA/PIPA as tracked by ProPublica.org. 

ProPublica.org  latest updates says "SOPA and PIPA have been indefinitely postponed".

Links:

• en.wikipedia.org - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
• guardian.co.uk - SOPA blackout day of action live
• bostinno.com - SOPA Is Dead: Cue Enormous LAN Party
• projects.propublica.org - SOPA Opera, Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA?
• twitter.com/#!/anonops - We are fighters for internet freedom