*promote a blackout

Here is an article that speaks about best practices when taking your site offline for a scheduled outage.

"Website outages and blackouts the right way"

https://plus.google.com/115984868678744352358/posts/Gas8vjZ5fmB

In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.

No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.

On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to Washington warning of SOPA's dangers. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity," the letter argued

Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill. “While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site earlier this month.

More: Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/#ixzz1jNPe7gdV

I copied the following from an email I recieved. Follow the link and add to the uproar.


Friends,

Quick request: Wikipedia is considering going dark to protest SOPA and PIPA, the Internet censorship bills.

It'd be huge news, jar rank-and-file Internet users out of complacency, and serve as a turning point in the effort to beat these bills.

Several sites are considering going dark next week -- Reddit's already pledged to do so, but to have the impact it'll take to kill SOPA and PIPA, we need much broader support. A blackout by Wikipedia could be what finally kills these bills.

Will you click here to urge Wikipedia to go on strike to protest censorship?

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/wiki_sign/?referring_akid=a4397852.1780189.DwsPUm&source=auto-taf

Thanks!

I think you should consider a temporary-permanent change to the website to follow up the black out day until SOPA is voted on. Then if it passes, consider a week long blackout as a "simulation". In either case, keep the information available and on your website whether it passes or fails, because if it fails they will be trying to pass something near as bad.....SOPA-lite if you will within a year...secretly if they can.

Change the background of the website to either an anti-SOPA graphic or black and have a link to all the blackout events and news surrounding it. Plus all of the SOPA material you collect here. Keep the comments separate from the information, so people can be left to form their own opinion on it instead of reading comments before the info is presented.

Perhaps consider making a *SOPA tag, so you can shunt people to videos covering it easily. And make it stand out until the vote is over.

Lets do it like Louis CK would... Admit it, the blackout is a noble thought. We should be really proud of ourselves for having considered doing that.

>> ^dag:

I wonder if Google and Facebook will get on board. I can see their thinking on this; 12 hours of down time for Google means giving up 1/730th of their profits for the year - which doesn't sound like much - but is not an insignificant number for a company like Google.


It's a leap year so it'll only be 1/732nd of their profits. Much more affordable

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I wonder if Google and Facebook will get on board. I can see their thinking on this; 12 hours of down time for Google means giving up 1/730th of their profits for the year - which doesn't sound like much - but is not an insignificant number for a company like Google.

I remember Nostalgia Critic had a big video that was a gag video about the horrors of SOPA, as well as an ad before all current videos, it seemed really effective. And, if every site on the net starts broadcasting these alerts and fake blackouts, discourse will be encouraged.

>> ^Hybrid:

I know, and being a video site SOPA could end up affecting VideoSift considerably. So I do agree with a blackout of VS from a moral standpoint. I just question the actual effectiveness of such an action in the bigger picture, that's all.>> ^JiggaJonson:
@Hybrid every little bit helps



Well, if videosift/bluesnews/cracked/reddit all went black with nothing but info/links about how to contact their representatives/why it's important, I know I would and people (in general) probably would have a lot of extra time on their hands if for no other reason than they wouldn't be distrac-- ...OHKITTYVIDEOMUSTCLICK!!!

I know, and being a video site SOPA could end up affecting VideoSift considerably. So I do agree with a blackout of VS from a moral standpoint. I just question the actual effectiveness of such an action in the bigger picture, that's all.>> ^JiggaJonson:

@Hybrid every little bit helps

Yes. As a show of support, absolutely...

... but how much effect will VideoSift going dark actually have? Not being harsh, but we aren't exactly getting Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube viewings. I think it's far more important that key sites that everyone use (including those tweeting policy makers etc...) blackout.

>> ^jimnms:

I don't think one day will be enough. One day of blackout will be a minor inconvenience, but a week will wake people up.

Its a inconvenience millions, probably almost a billion will experience though. Mostly I think the problem is that people just don't know about SOPA. Google/Facebook/etc run a protest page in place of their website and people are at least going to educate themselves on the matter, and I think most will decide that SOPA is a bad idea. If anything I think the danger of going on strike is it could backfire, make people mad and unlikely to be sympathetic of their reasons for doing so.


Either way I think Cenk is right. SOPA likely won't pass (and if it does there will be hell to pay), its really a distraction for SOPAlite, or PROTECT-IP I think its called. The whole govt blackmailing corporations for bribes seems like a conspiracy theory, but given how corrupt things seem to be it wouldn't actually surprise me if this was the case. So much for democracy.

I don't think one day will be enough. One day of blackout will be a minor inconvenience, but a week will wake people up.

I work for one of the comapnies listed. There is ZERO plan to blackout. This list is not a list of companies who will blackout to protest SOPA.

"According to Markham Erickson, head of the NetCoalition trade association, there’s been talk of a so-called “nuclear option,” in which the likes of Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! would go simultaneously dark to protest the legislation to highlight the fundamental danger the legislation poses to the function of the internet." The 'full list' is just an image that could be used as a placeholder when sites go dark listing companies who are against SOPA.

So the story is a complete fabrication based on one dudes pipe-dream list.


Sorry.