 "Photo: Daily Nebraskan")
As the Washington Post put it, this is what happens when you make the Internet mad.
Wednesday, Wikipedia blacked out every one of its pages written in English. Google's homepage covered its logo with a striking black censor bar. Wordpress, a blogging platform, Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox Web browser, joined several other sites in dramatically altering their homepages or obscuring their own content behind black bars.
They all united to say one thing to Congress: Don't pass the Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. House of Representatives or the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the U.S. Senate. Both bills have support and opposition from both sides of the aisle. They aim to give copyright holders, such as the music and movie industries, greater power in preventing and punishing online piracy of their content.
"The industry's realizing that ... these acts could really change the industry in a negative way," said Steve Goddard, chairman of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "In all likelihood, a bunch of it's scare tactics, but there's genuine concern."
The bills would give copyright holders and the federal government the power to block sites or portions of sites alleged to host copyrighted content without permission, or force advertisers and pay services like PayPal to abandon those sites. Another provision would make streaming copyrighted content more than 10 times in six months punishable by up to five years.
Supporters cite the common problem of online piracy and say the bills are meant to strengthen laws already in place. Opponents concede that concern but fear that such laws would result in either jumping the gun, with rivals or holders attacking each other's sites, or compel the online world to choose caution and safety over the innovation and creativity that has defined it since its earliest days.
Through the day of protest, the technology industry displayed its political might for the first time, drawing its users' attention to the bills by disrupting their online habits. According to more than a dozen interviews with UNL students, it worked. Friends, classmates, professors, strangers in dining halls — almost everyone knew someone who'd been talking about the blackout.
"Oh yeah, the ‘Great Blackout of 2012,'" said Nate Hall, a junior international studies and secondary special education major who said he supported the tactic. "I was actually kind of impressed to see them take such a bold step."
In a lounge in the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center, questions about the website shutdowns sparked a lively discussion among a group of about eight students, some explaining the bills to the others. The response was overwhelmingly against the proposals.
"That means they're trying to make use like Korea and China," said TeyAnjulee Leon, a sophomore fine arts major, after she heard the bill's main provisions. Several students in the group raised their hands when asked if they or someone they knew would be in trouble under the tougher penalty for streaming.
"We don't like that," Iesha Buford, a sophomore early child education major, said bluntly of the bills in general. She had some advice for Congress: "It'll make the world angry. Just don't do it."
Beyond the controversy inspired by SOPA and PIPA, the concerted move by the tech industry is a remarkable first, Goddard said.
Several groups with different priorities — including money, the First Amendment or just wanting the Internet to stay the same — have all come together to fight a bill that could leave a website shut down because someone allegedly infringed, Goddard said.
"People are really afraid of that (possibility)," he said. Even with the clear and straightforward need to protect copyright, "we know with absolute certainty that the power's going to be abused."
Goddard cautioned that the tactic might not be as effective as Google and others imagine. But many students said not to underestimate their powers to mobilize people. Google, for instance, reached a billion unique visitors per month last summer, a number that has likely risen since.
"You know what's going to happen?" Leon asked. She mentioned the popular mobilization of 2011, including Occupy Wall Street, in her answer, and said she'd spread awareness through Facebook when she got home. "People are going to protest ... People are pissed, man!"
By the end of the day, the power of the Internet protest was made clear. Dozens of senators and representatives, including Nebraska's Rep. Lee Terry who cosponsored of one of the bills, had announced their opposition amid a Twitter onslaught of negative feeling, according to The New York Times. The proposals' futures, once calm, is now in doubt.
"I think that speaks for the large influence the tech industry has over our lives," Hall said. Some observers have said politics changed yesterday, when the Web rose up and powerfully made its opinion clear. Goddard said the unique combination of groups that have come together would have to happen again before this tactic returns, but Hall wasn't so sure.
"I think that speaks for the large influence the tech industry has over our lives," he said. "How do you go back from this?"
danholtmeyer@dailynebraskan.com
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