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Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

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Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#91

Post by philwelch »

Vivtek wrote: post #87
philwelch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you remember the momentous uproar over Iraq? There were non-stop protests for at least a year before the war actually started, and for years afterwards. There were no similar protests over Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya because the US was only providing air support, and because Afghanistan started only a month after 9/11 and everyone was still shocked and compliant.

ck2 probably doesn't remember the momentous uproar over Iraq because the media was not at all interested in covering the protests. Unless you were in a city where a protest was going on and physically saw it, it basically didn't happen. And there were protests over Afghanistan; I participated in some myself. We weren't all shocked and compliant - the first thing I said upon seeing burning towers on the TV at the Indi…

There are protests over everything at all times. That's why the media doesn't cover them. They aren't news. There are crowds of demonstrators in every major city, outside of every abortion clinic, and on the National Mall in DC 24 hours a day.

The Iraq protests were the largest protest movement in decades and lasted for years. It really wasn't difficult to find out about them.

> the first thing I said upon seeing burning towers on the TV at the Indiana University Student Union was "Reichstag", and I wasn't wrong.

Well, there's always someone comparing the current administration to Nazis....

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#92

Post by theoj »

skb_ wrote: post #90

I've been thinking a bit about this and it's more a detriment to the United States than it is to the Internet. Censorship is a losing battle, especially with an educated public. There's just no way that this can work, it's a perpetual cat and mouse at best. I feel that SOPA will pass, there's no doubt in my mind - it will just be a much watered down version, much like any other bill that passes these days. Even this…

>> And there will probably be more bureaucrats added to the system, with jobs that are essentially useless and another needless expense.

This is really twisted. The industry is taking something it wants to do -- draconian copyright enforcement -- and passing that activity (plus the cost) to taxpayers. The system is broken. You can clearly see that when special interest groups that represent a small minority can get taxpayer money and spend it against the majority while at the same time getting the majority to pay.

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#94

Post by tomjen3 »

If that is the kind of ads tech giants make, then we have all lost.

This needs more Don Draper and less wall of text. It needs to tell a compelling story with a righteous underdog fighting the good fight which would be squashed if this law passes. It needs to paint anybody who support it as a traitor to America(TH).

And it needs to rebrand it the "Killing the American Dream Act" so that nobody can politically afford to support it.

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#95

Post by nitrogen »

einhverfr wrote: post #49
fmota wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to be cynical but, if SOPA passes and breaks the Internet, these software companies would gain a lot. Especially Microsoft. Remember the "good old days" of Microsoft Everything? I hope you're as fond of them as these software companies seem to be.

The paranoid security geek in me says "You know those Microsoft contributions to SAMBA lately? Could they go for a takedown order of the open source project on the allegation of copyright infringement now and make the SAMBA project fight to get their domain back?"

The cynic in me says that Microsoft's contributions are a subtle sabotage. Back in the day, Samba was incredibly easy to configure as a domain controller with full UNIX account sync. The latest Samba now requires the creation and maintenance of an actual Windows registry, a separate account system, etc.

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#96

Post by panthera »

The ad proves the old maxim true: "Everyone's a reactionary against something they know about."

Nearly all of the companies listed in this ad were heavy donors to the Obama administration. Now they understand what their donation got them.

Everyone in the Internet industry feels extreme pain when these regulations are proposed, and rightly so. SOPA is an insane example of a bankrupt government flailing about.

However, the same commentariat thinks that regulation is somehow "necessary" in medicine, law, or energy.

(" could have been prevented if we just had more rules on the books! Surely the evil profit-making corporations would cut every corner they could, just to make a buck! It's not like taking it in the shorts every single day in the press will hit their stock price!")

Once you've tasted government intervention in your industry, you'll want some mouthwash.

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#97

Post by i386 »

panthera wrote: post #96

The ad proves the old maxim true: "Everyone's a reactionary against something they know about." Nearly all of the companies listed in this ad were heavy donors to the Obama administration. Now they understand what their donation got them. Everyone in the Internet industry feels extreme pain when these regulations are proposed, and rightly so. SOPA is an insane example of a bankrupt government flailing about. However,…

Its simple to think that regulation is good and bad if you generalize and say that no industry should/should not be regulated just because it causes inconvenience.

Regulation should be in place to put safeties into a system. What i mean by that is don't let people "cheat" too much. By cheating the reasonable bounds of the system the whole system would suffer (people dying, civil liberties slashed or financial systems collapsing).

That said industries you would want tight regulation on is in the food or medical industries.

Nothing is black and white but always varying shades of grey.

Re: Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

#100

Post by bobbles »

krschultz wrote: post #45
bobbles wrote: post #23

95% of people would look at that wall of text and turn the page.. they really needed something that would actually draw in peoples attention if they want it to get noticed

The 5% that read it are the ones who influence policy in Washington. The most powerful thing on that page is not the text - it's the logos on the bottom. The average senator can not tell you the difference between a DNS server and a Warez server, but they know who Facebook, Google, eBay, et al are. Remember, there are a lot of people out there who go to Google and type in www.gmail.com into the search box on a daily…

I was just thinking about it and I'm sure if all the page said was 'Stop SOPA' and had all of those logos there.. I would be wanting to find out more about the issue.
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