Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout • Hacker News Board

Re: Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout

#31

Post by mikeash » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

ggchappell wrote: post #28

mikeash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sites believe that they face an existential crisis due to this proposed legislation. Slightly impacting the service today to save it for the long term is clearly worth the tradeoff, if it's necessary.

Well, I guess a number of people disagree with me. And I can accept that (although I still disagree). But I think I should point out that "worth the tradeoff" is not the issue I'm talking about. For example, suppose I pay for something at a store, but the store refuses to give it to me, because they're protesting something. We can certainly ask whether the store's policy is "worth the tradeoff", but is that really th…

They're not protesting "something". They're protesting a law which they believe has a good chance of passing, and which will likely put them out of business if passed.

Now, should they interfere with your paid service because of that? I don't know. But it's not cut and dried either way. The best would be for the law to go away and for your service to continue without interruption. But it doesn't look like that's possible at the moment. You have to choose one, and neither one is something they "should" do.

Re: Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout

#32

Post by artursapek » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #5

artursapek wrote: post #4

I wish they had followed through strongly on this. There's a hard-to-miss link that lets you opt-out of having your photos censored, and if you're visiting a blacked-out photo flickr gives the anti-PIPA spiel and presents a button to "show it anyway." If they were trying to demonstrate what SOPA/PIPA would make the internet like, shouldn't they just bite the bullet and make these photo black-outs permanent for a day?…

The goal isn't really to get people "worked up", it's to raise awareness. You've completely missed the point, and Flickr's method is brilliant because it brings intuition to the impact of what SOPA may actually do.

But if the demonstration is just for a day, why does it still have to be so wishy-washy? It's imaginary. People would take it more seriously if it was really out of their control.

Re: Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout

#33

Post by unfasten » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 12:42 AM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #29

ascuttlefish wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The photos are darkened for me.

Must've been a temporary mistake. The whitehouse's flickr account is definitely opted-out. None of their photos are darkened.

At least all the photos on the first page of the photostream are darkened for me. Here's a screenshot of the first picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24903613/ss/flickr-whitehouse-sopa.p...

Are you located outside the U.S.? It could also be possible that it changed in the last few hours.

Re: Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout

#34

Post by Natsu » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

jarek wrote: post #20

maeon3 wrote: post #8

We are no doubt pissing off Congress to no end. I wonder what the approval rating of Congress will become after this stunt? 5%? 2%?

Do you really think 95% of the population either already disapproves of the Congress or has been on the internet today and ran into a darkened site and thought about the issue?

Congressional support is something like 13.3% with 83% disapproval.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_...

HuffPo has a funny take on that, saying that more people approve of "Porn, Polygamy, BP Oil Spill, 'U.S. Going Communist'" than of Congress.

So no it's probably not unreasonable to suppose that somewhat less than half (12/27) of the ~27% people who approve of or are neutral to Congress saw a darkened site and thought about the issue. I know that I got questioned about it at work by the less technical folks.