Protests against SOPA and PIPA

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Screenshot of the Wikipedia homepage on January 18, 2012
Protests in New York City, 2012

The protests against SOPA and PIPA culminated on January 18, 2012 with worldwide online protests. They were preceded by smaller protests in 2011 that received far less attention. Critics of the draft laws Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) fear that the laws, in their efforts to enforce the protection of copyright , would wreak havoc on freedom of expression, websites and internet communities. It was also criticized that pages with user-generated content were not sufficiently protected.

The step towards a coordinated protest came about because some large portals, including Reddit and the author community of the English Wikipedia, thought about making their content temporarily inaccessible to users and instead displaying a text about the planned laws. A short time later, numerous projects and companies including Google , Mozilla and Flickr joined. In total, over 115,000 websites and several million people took part in the protest. In addition to the online protests, there were demonstrations in various US cities including New York City, San Francisco and Seattle. As early as December 2011, Jimmy Wales announced on Twitter that the domain names registered with Go Daddy from Wikimedia and “several hundred” domains from Wikia would be transferred to another registrar in protest against his stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act .

Even before the protest in January, it caused a lot of public attention. A few days earlier, the White House announced that it would not support legislation that restricts freedom of expression, increases the dangers of cyberattacks, and restricts a dynamic, innovative Internet. On January 18, more than eight million people accessed the data of their MPs on Wikipedia, a petition on Google had over 4.5 million supporters, more than a million e-mails were sent via a form from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, lasting several hours More than a quarter of a million tweets an hour about SOPA were sent via Twitter , and MEPs received more than 14 million inquiries, of which more than 10 million were from voters.

During and after the protests in January, many politicians who had previously endorsed the bills completely withdrew their support. Internationally, there was scathing criticism from the World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the Commissioner for Digital Agenda . Some media criticized the pressure that was put on SOPA advocates; the Boston Herald described the service limitations as evidence of how powerful the cyber rowdies can be. The Chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America Chris Dodd said the coordinated shutdown was an abuse of the freedoms that the companies involved had in the market. Others like The New York Times saw the protest as a "political coming out of the internet industry".

On January 20, 2012, the political climate in relation to the draft legislation had changed dramatically. The drafts were withdrawn from further voting, ostensibly to address the concerns raised. Opponents emphasized that the drafts had been postponed indefinitely, but not "dead" and would come back.

literature

Web links

 Wikinews: en: Wikipedia, Reddit in 'blackout' against SOPA, PROTECT IP laws  - message
Commons : Anti-SOPA blackout screenshots  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wortham, Jenna (Jan. 19, 2012). "Public outcry over antipiracy bills began as grassroots grumbling" . New York Times . Retrieved January 21, 2012
  2. ↑ At least 10 million e-mails and 24 million tweets are documented. Reliable sources about the exact number of participants are not known.
  3. ^ Jimmy Wales: I am proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on #sopa is unacceptable to us . December 23, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
  4. ↑ Jimmy Wales: Wikia is also moving several hundred domains from godaddy. Which registrar has quality and price right? . December 24, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
  5. ↑ Rupert Murdoch Sopa attack rebuffed by Google . BBC News. January 16, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
  6. ↑ a b Deborah Netburn: Wikipedia: SOPA protest led 8 million to look up reps in Congress , Los Angeles Times. January 19, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012. 
  7. ↑ Corynne McSherry, Julie Samuels: Thank You, Internet! And the fight continues . Electronic Frontier Foundation . January 18, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  8. ^ A b Jonathan Weisman: After an Online Firestorm, Congress Shelves Antipiracy Bills , The New York Times. January 20, 2012. 
  9. ^ Dan Worth: Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee slams SOPA and PIPA legislation . In: V3 , January 18, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012. 
  10. ^ Dan Worth: European Commission digital chief backs anti-SOPA protests . In: V3 , http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2140390/european-commission-digital-chief-backs-anti-sopa-protests . 
  11. ^ "A halt to online theft" Boston Herald January 18, 2012
  12. ↑ MPAA's Chris Dodd takes aim at SOPA strike The Los Angeles Times January 17, 2012
  13. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/technology/web-wide-protest-over-two-antipiracy-bills.html?scp=11&sq=SOPA&st=cse
  14. ^ Sue Gardner: Wikimedia Foundation: Statement on Jan 20 events in Washington . In: 2012-01-20 . Wikimedia Foundation . Retrieved January 22, 2012.