Protests against SOPA and PIPA
On January 18, 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred against two proposed laws in the United States Congress—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These followed smaller protests in late 2011. Protests were based on concerns that the bills, intended to provide more robust responses to copyright infringement (also known as piracy) arising outside the United States, contained measures that could possibly infringe online freedom of speech, websites, and Internet communities. Protesters also argued that there were insufficient safeguards in place to protect sites based upon user-generated content.
"Web Blackout" redirects here. For the similar 1996 online protest, see Black World Wide Web protest.
The move to a formal protest was initiated when Fight for the Future organized[1] thousands of the most popular websites in the world, including the English Wikipedia, to temporarily close or interrupt their content and redirect users to a message opposing the proposed legislation. Websites such as Google, Reddit, Mozilla, and Flickr soon featured protests against the acts. Some shut down completely, while others kept some or all of their content accessible. According to Fight for the Future, more than 115,000 websites joined the Internet protest.[2] In addition to the online protests, there were simultaneous physical demonstrations in several U.S. cities, including New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, and separately during December 2011 a mass boycott of then-supporter GoDaddy. The protests were reported globally.
The January protest, initially planned to coincide with the first SOPA hearing of the year, drew publicity and reaction. Days prior to the action, the White House issued a statement that it would "not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."[3] On January 18, 2012, itself, more than 8 million people looked up their representative on Wikipedia,[4] 3 million people emailed Congress to express opposition to the bills,[2] more than 1 million messages were sent to Congress through the Electronic Frontier Foundation,[5] a petition at Google recorded over 4.5 million signatures,[4] Twitter recorded at least 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets,[4] and lawmakers collected "more than 14 million names—more than 10 million of them voters—who contacted them to protest" the bills.[6]
During and after the January protest, a number of politicians who had previously supported the bills expressed concerns with the proposals in their existing form, while others withdrew their support entirely. Internationally, "scathing" criticism of the bills was voiced from World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee,[7] as well as the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.[8] Some observers were critical of the tactics used; the Boston Herald described the service withdrawals as evidence of "how very powerful these cyber-bullies can be."[9] Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Chris Dodd stated that the coordinated shutdown was "an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today."[10] Others such as The New York Times saw the protests as "a political coming of age for the tech industry."[11]
By January 20, 2012, the political environment regarding both bills had shifted significantly. The bills were removed from further voting, ostensibly to be revised to take into consideration the issues raised,[6] but according to The New York Times, it was probably "shelved" following a "flight away from the bill".[6] Opposers noted the bills had been "indefinitely postponed" but cautioned they were "not dead" and "[would] return."[12]
December 2011 boycott of GoDaddy[edit]
On December 22, 2011, users at Reddit proposed a boycott and a public day for switching away from then–SOPA supporter GoDaddy,[26] the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world, known as Move Your Domain Day.[27] The date was later set as December 29, 2011.[28]
Popular websites that moved domains included Imgur,[29] the Wikimedia Foundation,[30] and Cheezburger—which stated it would remove over 1,000 domains from GoDaddy if they continued their support of SOPA.[31]
On December 23, 2011, GoDaddy withdrew its support for SOPA, releasing a statement saying "GoDaddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."[32][33] CEO Warren Adelman stated when asked, that he couldn't commit to changing GoDaddy's position on the record in Congress, but said "I'll take that back to our legislative guys, but I agree that's an important step,”[34] when pressed, he said "We're going to step back and let others take leadership roles."[34] Further outrage was due to the fact that many Internet sites would be subject to shutdowns under SOPA, but GoDaddy is in a narrow class of exempted businesses that would have immunity, whereas many other domain operators would not.[35]
On December 26, 2011, a Google bomb was started against GoDaddy to remove them from the #1 place on Google for the term "Domain Registration" in retaliation for supporting SOPA.[36] This was then disseminated through Hacker News.[37] Reddit users noted that by December 22, 2011, SOPA supporters were discovering the backlash that could arise from ignoring social media users.[38]
Reports up to December 29, 2011 described GoDaddy as "hemorrhaging" customers.[39][40] On December 25, 2011, (Christmas Day) GoDaddy lost a net 16,191 domains as a result of the boycott.[41] However, on December 29, 2011, itself, GoDaddy gained a net of 20,748 domains, twice as many as it lost that day, attributed by Techdirt to a number of causes, in particular customers having moved early, and an appeased customer response to their change of position over SOPA.[42][43]
Related protests[edit]
SOPA and PIPA protests were overlapped and followed by protests against ACTA which has a similar sense. The ACTA treaty was signed by 22 Member States in Europe and was expected to be signed before March 2012 by the other states left, Cyprus, Estonia, Netherlands and Slovakia, and thus would have gained legal force for the whole European Union. On February 11, more than 200 European cities took part in a widespread protest against ACTA.[127][128] Although protests were held in Europe, the signing of ACTA was led by USA, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, and Singapore, which were first to sign the treaty at a ceremony on October 1, 2011, in Tokyo.[129] However, the concerns of ACTA are much related and raised after the protests against SOPA and PIPA which directed the public attention to bills and acts that may threaten Internet and civic liberties.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), "SOPA and PIPA are really only the tip of the iceberg. The same forces behind these domestic U.S. laws have continued to both push for other states to pass similar domestic laws, as well as to secretly negotiate international trade agreements that would force signatory nations to conform to the same legal standards."[142]
Examples cited by EFF include:[142]
Examples considered "similar to SOPA/PIPA" by other analyses:
Legacy[edit]
In January 2022, Tiffiniy Cheng of Techdirt wrote that "The SOPA Blackout not only killed the bill in 2012, but shook Congress so profoundly that no significant copyright legislation has been introduced in the ten years since. Because the Blackout achieved so much progress against the political order in a matter of weeks, this moment in history rewrote what we collectively think is possible in the political realm; in particular among the political set, even though triumphs of this proportion remain elusive, and power is even more entrenched."[152]