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Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

wwws.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#41

Post by chimeracoder »

nostromo wrote: post #29
wdewind wrote: post #6

I was on a conference call w/ Zoe Lofgren (CA congress woman who is on the Judiciary fighting the hell out of this bill) and a bunch of NYC tech companies last weekend and she said petitions are essentially ignored, and instead to make phone calls to your reps and directly into the capital. This isn't to say don't sign this, but if you are really concerned, the absolute bottom line is phone calls. Anything you can do…

Be sure to read the petition -- unlike most of them, it's actually smart political commentary: It mocks SOPA by having whitehouse.gov itself link to a website that's infringing copyright. The joke is that whitehouse.gov could itself be removed from the DNS system under SOPA. This is the first use of the White House petitioning system that I think is actually really clever. (Honorable mention: Petition to Please Take…

Whatever happened to that petition? I just checked, and it seems that it reached the threshold.

If I remember correctly, that means they have to respond to it within a month, which would be Dec. 27th?

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#43

Post by ericd »

rhizome wrote: post #17
vectorpush wrote: post #14

I don't understand this fascination with internet petitions. Hasn't it been demonstrated to the point of absurdity that our government does not care? Before anyone claims "OH, so we should just do nothing instead????". Posting a dubious e-signature to an internet petition does nothing . There are people out in the streets sleeping in parks getting pepper sprayed and arrested because the government can't simply ignore…

The fascination is with poisoning the well. A lot of people have the interest and energy to do exactly one thing politically, and in this age of OWS and global uprising it's in the interests of the status quo to eliminate the effect of this low-hanging fruit. The people who create and post internet petitions are evil and/or stupid, without exception.

So you're saying that some online petitions are actually meant to diffuse dissent about the thing they're petitioning? That would be a stroke of evil genius if it's true. Doesn't strike me as being the case so much as their being driven by naive idealism, but in the case of the whitehouse one, it's at least conceivable. In the long run, it's probably just going to demonstrate to a lot of people that online petitions are mostly counterproductive.

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#44

Post by rst »

orthecreedence wrote: post #10

Every time I've voted on a whitehouse.gov petition, I've gotten an email 6 months later saying why the petition will be completely ignored, answering none of the points the petition brought up. The petition system is an ineffectual smokescreen.

You could imagine that one of these petitions might bring an issue that they weren't aware of to some staffer's attention. But this administration clearly already has a very strong view in favor of intellectual property protection by any means available, regardless of the consequences. It's one they've made manifest by pushing ACTA (among other things), and it's really hard to imagine a petition like this changing it.

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#45

Post by joshuahedlund »

For all the discussion about worthless Internet petitions, it should be noted that the White House form is specifically set up to at least elicit a response if a certain threshold is reached. The threshold was originally 5,000 signatures but was raised to 25,000 after the White House responded to pleas for information about extraterrestrials. If they gave a response to that arguably silly request, it is reasonable to think they will at least respond to this one.

See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45176460/ns/technology_and_scien...

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#48

Post by JonnieCache »

viraptor wrote: post #31
JonnieCache wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governmental e-petitions: ignoring the public more efficiently than ever before. Actually now in britain we have it set up so whenever one of these gets 100,000 votes, it must be debated in parliament. One of the few useful or interesting things cameron has done. Of course they are quite rightly not bound to do anything more than debate it, and in the long run it will probably just be a more efficient way of shutting…

I think you're spreading FUD really. Have a look at current UK petitions which have passed the 100k votes: fuel prices - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/347 (small decrease implemented, plans for the future shared) immigration - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658 (basic plans shared, recently implemented changes listed, already heard some people having visa issues, so something is happening) su…

All that stuff is relatively non-controversial though, I don't consider the system to have been really tested until the people demand something the government really doesn't want to do.

When we get a million signatures against war in iran, or to unilaterally leave the EU or something, then we'll see what happens.

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#49

Post by iamdave »

rkon wrote: post #18
vectorpush wrote: post #14

I don't understand this fascination with internet petitions. Hasn't it been demonstrated to the point of absurdity that our government does not care? Before anyone claims "OH, so we should just do nothing instead????". Posting a dubious e-signature to an internet petition does nothing . There are people out in the streets sleeping in parks getting pepper sprayed and arrested because the government can't simply ignore…

Did you read the petition? It seems like you're missing the joke in this one...

What joke? Four, well reasoned and exceptionally well written petitions have gone up to this very website and the administration responded with insultingly dismissive answers that did not, end the end, address anything.

Re: Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA

#50

Post by gamble »

ericd wrote: post #43
rhizome wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fascination is with poisoning the well. A lot of people have the interest and energy to do exactly one thing politically, and in this age of OWS and global uprising it's in the interests of the status quo to eliminate the effect of this low-hanging fruit. The people who create and post internet petitions are evil and/or stupid, without exception.

So you're saying that some online petitions are actually meant to diffuse dissent about the thing they're petitioning? That would be a stroke of evil genius if it's true. Doesn't strike me as being the case so much as their being driven by naive idealism, but in the case of the whitehouse one, it's at least conceivable. In the long run, it's probably just going to demonstrate to a lot of people that online petitions…

Online petitions exist to harvest email addresses so they can hit you up for donations and volunteering during the campaign. They're an easy way for campaign staff to build a mailing list of people politically engaged enough to be worth spamming.
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