![Request for Comment: SOPA and a strike [edit] An editor has requested comment from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the Unsorted list. When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below Please consider joining the Feedback Request Service. (Please help me publicize this widely.) A few months ago, the Italian Wikipedia community made a decision to blank all of Italian Wikipedia for a short period in order to protest a law which would infringe on their editorial independence. The Italian Parliament backed down immediately. As Wikipedians may or may not be aware, a much worse law going under the misleading title of "Stop Online Piracy Act' is working its way through Congress on a bit of a fast track. I may be attending a meeting at the White House on Monday (pending confirmation on a couple of fronts) along with executives from many other top Internet firms, and I thought this would be a good time to take a quick reading of the community feeling on this issue. My own view is that a community strike was very powerful and successful in Italy and could be even more powerful in this case. There are obviously many questions about whether the strike should be geotargetted (US-only), etc. (One possible view is that because the law would seriously impact the functioning of Wikipedia for everyone, a global strike of at least the English Wikipedia would put the maximum pressure on the US government.) At the same time, it's of course a very very big deal to do something like this, it is unprecedented for English Wikipedia. - Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimbo Wales (talk contribs) 07:42, 10 December 2011 (note: I added the request for comment tag and signature for the bot Crazynas 09:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)) So, this is a straw poll. Please lvote either support' or 'oppose' with a reason, and try to keep wide-ranging discussion to the section below the poll To be clear, this is NOT a vote on whether or not to have a strike. This is merely a straw poll to indicate overall interest. If this poll is firmly opposed' then I'll know that now. But even if this poll is firmly in 'support' we'd obviously go through a much longer process to get some kind of consensus around parameters, triggers, and timing Before answering at Poll, perhaps read below, #Discussion.-Wikid77 05:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/216/567/c15.png "c15.png")
Image #216,567
Uploaded by Brad Dec 13, 2011 at 12:58PM EST
Origin Entry: Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act (PIPA / SOPA)
File type: png
Resolution: (1274px x 397px)
File size: 123 KB
![[Discussion]Are SJWs an end-run around the failure of SOPA? iself.KotakulnAction) submitted 11 minutes ago by Aurondarklord So l've been thinking about this a lot lately...SJWs are definitely not a new thing, but until a couple years ago, they were never a BIG thing, they had their little hugboxes, and occasionally you'd run into some hypersensitive crusader in the wild, but they were mostly an irrelevant joke and certainly not capable of intimidating companies or forcing change. And then, very suddenly, they began gaining rapid steam, boosted by incredibly biased media coverage selling the world moral panic about all of their pet causes We know, from leaked documents, that the major media companies are determined to succeed where SOPA and PIPA failed, and that a major part of their strategy to ultimately implement site blocking is to find a way to shift the overton window, change culture so that people become okay with the idea. Atheism+ was coined in 2012, Anita Sarkeesian's kickstarter was in 2012, I would call these two of the major events that touched off the big internet social justice war that has snowballed to where we are today, SOPA and PIPA went down in flames in January 2012. And as some people have pointed out, Reddit's new "harassment" policy essentially mirrors the structure of those bills, subs get nuked with no trial and no recourse because someone in authority has decided their content is unacceptable. It would appear on the outside that the SJWs succeeded where corporate America could not, they're implemented their own mini-SOPA, and done so to the cheering of the masses at least on one side of the political spectrum, and the broad approval (and spin doctoring assistance) of the tech media. ...Or did they? Okay everybody, time to get your tinfoil hats on nice and snug! How is it that in the course of about three years, SJWs seem to have infiltrated the tech scene on every level, controlling major websites, gaining an ideological stranglehold over once neutral or libertarian publications and news outlets, and positioning themselves to be able to produce "propaganda bursts" like "gamers are dead" or now "redditors are dead" in coordinated tandem to spin a narrative demonizing any group that's a threat to their ideology? What if they had help? The more l think about it, and the more the anti-free speech efforts of the SJWs seem to mirror ideas like SOPA, the more l start to wonder if this whole thing has been astroturfed. Perhaps the entire SJW movement is manufactured by the big media companies as part of their strategy to change the cultural climate on site blocking, they found a few useful idiots, funded them or gave them access to media spotlight, and relentlessly pushed their agenda as a means of demonizing free speech and the open internet, getting people to accept, and even push for, censorship for ideological reasons, so they'll be more open to the idea of censorship for business reasons Maybe the SJWs appear so inexplicably well coordinated because they actually ARE being coordinated by an outside force So discuss, something worth looking into, or am l a paranoid lunatic? 4 comments share save hide give gold report](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/000/977/766/709.png "Tinfoil hat theory but who knows")
Uploaded by Brad Dec 13, 2011 at 12:58PM EST
Origin Entry: Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act (PIPA / SOPA)
File type: png
Resolution: (1274px x 397px)
File size: 123 KB
