Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

Post by jitendra_ » Thu, Jan 12, 2012, 4:47 AM UTC

crgt wrote: post #57

vaksel wrote: post #12

HN itself? No All the startups/sites that everyone on here runs? Absolutely You don't even have to go 100% dark, you can just have a splash telling your users about SOPA. You need to realize

Perhaps on that day, HN blacks out all normal content and instead just features a list of all the sites that have gone black in protest? Could let users submit URLs to be added to the list.

Post by merryandrew » Thu, Jan 12, 2012, 4:51 AM UTC

Post by bitops » Thu, Jan 12, 2012, 5:05 AM UTC

Post by wonderercat » Thu, Jan 12, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

abibibo wrote: post #143

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #10

1) The more sites decide to shut down on the 18th, the easier it becomes for major websites like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to join. It also increases the chances that this is going to be covered by the mainstream media. 2) Perhaps a blackout will give some HNers the final push (and time) to make some phone calls to their representatives. 3) It can serve as a demonstration of what the web will be like if SOPA kick…

>> 2) Perhaps a blackout will give some HNers the final push (and time) to make some phone calls to their representatives. I think far more effective than a complete blackout would be requiring HNers contact their representatives before they can access HN content. Not sure how best to implement, but a email form that grants a token upon completion should be feasible (you'd need to decide how to handle non-US based IP…

Post by mvanveen » Thu, Jan 12, 2012, 5:19 AM UTC

daniel-cussen wrote: post #109

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62

I wanted to vote no, because it seems so Pyrrhic, maybe a little gimmicky: "See, we shut down a site you don't use!" But if you're asking people to make a sacrifice you're not willing to make yourself, you're a bad leader, period. I'm not saying HN is the bastion of the tech world. But if we're upvoting the Reddit shutdown (at least I did), and we can't turn around and do it ourselves, well, we're not made of very to…

I don't think it's gimmicky at all. There's a very real threat that SOPA or whatever comes after that will de juro or de facto allow old media to end the internet as we know it. Blacking out sites ahead of that only helps illustrate to people the harm the law will do.