Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 294 posts

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

#241

Post by hosh »

jofo25 wrote: post #236
bborud wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aware, but passive. Which in sum means that all that awareness is completely worthless. No, really, it is. The fact that majority of Hacker News readers are against SOPA means absolutely nothing. NONE of you passively disagreeing with this legislation will do an iota of difference. The question is always: what does it take to push people from awareness and complete inaction to at least some form of action? Hacker New…

This rang very true with me. I'm willing to wager only a tiny percentage of HN users have communicated their opposition to SOPA/PIPA to their representatives. Something like providing links to appropriate resources would convert time usually spent browsing HN into time actually helping stop SOPA/PIPA.

Easy ways to take some actions:

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3261 click on 'Oppose'

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968 click on 'Oppose'

Slightly harder:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_sopa (Sends modifiable form email to your Senator and Representative).

Add a comments to the PopVOX entries

Go viral and tweet/facebook/G+ the DemandProgress page.

Harder still:

- Lookup your Senator and Representative's phone number and make a personal call. This gets the most traction as a constituent.

- If you are lazy, sign up on Demand Progress. Eventually you will get an email encouraging you to make a personal call. The software will provide you with the number to call and who you are calling based on your zip code. You don't even have to use Google.

Having HN black out is a dumb move. Most techies are aware of SOPA/PROTECT-IP. Many non-techies do not. Explaining just a little bit to my non-techie friends gets them opposing these bills. When we black out HN, at most we're simply shutting down a source of addiction. Even if it reaches the ears of the legislators, at best it will be seen as children saying, "I /QUIT, and I'm taking my ball with me." A bunch of techies shut down their own community site in protest. Wow ... Failure to understand Rhetorics 101.

Having FB and Google black out on the other hand reaches out to people who are not aware of these issues.

Best if you can convince non-techies to oppose these bills and then to have them call up their Congressmen. Tell them that bills do not, in fact, save jobs and would make life difficult for non-techies still treading water financially.

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

#243

Post by Jagat »

Flenser wrote: post #209
VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

Google + Bing + Yahoo turned off the switch for a couple of hours at the same time... that would be a statement. I think that would only annoy people. They should make everything above the fold go dark, and make people scroll down to get their regular content.

Really? Doesn't every form of protest annoy someone or another? At least, they'd try to find why google/facebook was unavailable for a day and run into the draconian SOPA - something they thought wasn't their business at all.

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

#244

Post by rbanffy »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #100
rbanffy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I proudly join my fellow protesters in the US, despite living elsewhere. The ideals they defend are mine and I stand by their side.

Shouldn't we be secretly hoping it will pass so that these big US companies will have to move their operations overseas to our countries?

Bad legislation is contagious.

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

#247

Post by bobpotterws »

VonLipwig wrote: post #221
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Announcing a hacker news blackout could sway the big guys to do the same.

HN has nothing to lose by blacking out. Google have advertisers and business to worry about. They also have the G+ vs Facebook battle to be concerned about. If Google blackout and no one else does then what will people do during the hours Google is down? They would go else where... shareholders and investors would be very unhappy. Especially if you consider these people who pop to Bing may decide they like Bing bette…

I like your idea of adding "SOPA would mean that we would have to black out portions of the Internet..." That would get attention.

As far as Google's advertisers, the G+ vs FB battle, and investors. It's either take a temporary stand now or get forced into taking a long term stand down later. What good is google ads if they can't run your ad? What good is a G+ vs FB battle if its really GOV vs G+ & FB? What good will it be to investors once their stock drops because google's ad rev (as well as other revenue sources) drops?

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

#248

Post by brudgers »

In general, HN should not go dark...it should dim.

The appropriate action would be to block access from U.S. IP addresses and to block links to articles with the same.

There is no reason to make the rest of the world put up with more of the results of US political posturing than they currently do.

It's our (America's) problem. We're the one's who should feel the pain.

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

#249

Post by padobson »

VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

Agreed.

If Hacker News gets up on the pulpit on Sunday morning and turns its back on the mainstream to give an impassioned message to the readership who is already there to sing on its behalf...

...well, you get it.

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

#250

Post by dhimes »

VonLipwig wrote: post #185

The answer is no, people who say yes are wrong. You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars. Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blac…

There is an excellent point to be made with going dark. If "we" go dark via css, (of course) the regular users will know how to get around it and the site will actually be up and running but not look like it is to outside observers. That sends the message: What looks like one thing (SOPA controls) won't actually stop the people who know what they are doing. That's not horrible in itself, but when you give up something so dear as due process to get it, it makes no sense.
Post reply on HN