DARKNESS AFTER MIDNIGHT - The Counter Intuitive Protest

At midnight, some of the most popular websites are going on strike to protest possible changes to anti-piracy laws. They will do so by going dark. I am completely baffled by this move and how it is becoming apparent that the Internet may be destroying our ability to have a meaningful revolution against the corrupt power structure. I first heard about this when I read that Wikipedia would be shutting down their English version on January 18th to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation.

Here we are in the year 2012 and that by this time we would know a little something about the value of the social and technological advancement with the internet. However it seems that big government has a way to bully online and the wimps who are being beaten down are realizing that they will volunteer to take the punches instead of using what strength they have to cast the stone to bring down the Goliath.
Both SOPA and PIPA if passed will threaten websites with copyright violations and eventually shut them down if necessary. Wikipedia in a Counter Intuitive measure will shut down voluntarily to show how it would be if SOPA or PIPA laws were to shut them down. This of course has spawned talk od solidarity measures online form other websites who are saying that they too will shut down at midnight to protest the legislation as well.
While I loathe both SOPA and PIPA and know the truth about why there is such a move to blacklist websites—shutting down a website to protest the threat of censorship is the equivalent of boarding up your windows and locking your doors in hopes that someone will notice that you are doing so and hoping that others will have empathy for your inability to use common sense.
It is similar to realizing that the government is out to kill you and your solution is to go on a hunger strike. Blacking out or darkening a site does nothing to inform people about the facts— it simply appeals to the weakness of the Internet and that is the fact that it can be turned off and disposable.
Nowhere are people exposing that the legislation that will black list sites as sites that encourage piracy is being lobbied by the very companies that encouraged piracy through the use of software sharing that enabled the downloading of copyrighted music in the first place. Meanwhile counterintuitive protests somehow become keen to the intellect and mean absolutely nothing without any facts or muscle to change thought or public knowledge.
The idea of blacklisting your own website in order to show what it would be like without your little window to the world shows hubris and self delusion. Arming yourself with knowledge and using it to informing others is far more effective.
Big media and its allies in Congress are billing the Internet blacklisting as a new way to battle online copyright infringement. But innovation and free speech advocates know that this initiative will do little to stop infringement online. What it will do is compromise Internet security, inhibit online expression, and slow growth in the technology sector. The threat of such legislation has already caused a small number of internet users to take counter intuitive measures in order to prove some point that no one outside of cyberspace—or even outside of the United States cares about.
Once again the hubris is reeking in this situation. It is fascinating to see that those who want to shut down their websites in protest actually believe that this will effectively cause a tremendous amount of anger and that this anger will be channeled and constructive enough to force what they call the internet “Sheeple” into writing and calling a congressman.
I guess if you look at the true psychology of sheep – you will see that if there is no grass in one side of the pasture to graze in, the group will move to another patch of grass. Just like if a person goes to a website that is dark—they will go somewhere else to find similar information.
Most websites maintain their visits through consistency. If you are an important website like Google or Wikipedia wouldn’t it be a bit more affective to actually get your audience to sample information that would teach them about how the Stop Online Piracy legislation started instead of being silent and dark so that someone else can spread disinformation on the topic?
The Stop Online Piracy ACT and the PROTECT IP ACT billsundefined provisions would give corporations and other private parties’ new powers to censor foreign websites with court orders that would cut off payment processors and advertisers.
Broad immunity provisions (combined with a threat of litigation) would encourage service providers to over block innocent users or even block websites voluntarily. This gives content companies every incentive to create unofficial blacklists of websites, which service providers would be under pressure to block without regard to the First Amendment.
Those who use the web for information and entertainment already know what this means for them and they already hopefully are trying to educate others by wrangling media of their own- that will report that corporate media websites used all sorts of sharing software from CNET, LIMEWIRE and other piracy software sharing sites in order to encourage visitors to download free music, movies, child porn and other items. Now corporate lobbyists are asking for legislation to subdue and kill a monster that they created. They are like drug dealers handing out cocaine and when the customers refuse to pay they are asking Congress to help collect on their criminal behavior..—and what are some people asking us to do? Be silent of course.. for one day.. that will show them that we mean business and that our websites are so important that someone will have to get angry and do something.
That’s the ticket undefined shut down their own websites in protest – or put up a link to some congressmen who thinks that cookies are good with milk and Spam is a lunch meat that is served with eggs in Hawaiian luncheonettes. That will do everything to teach those who don’t know that companies like Disney, Sony, Viacom and all of the others who are lobbying for these bills encouraged the downloading of illegal movies, porn, child porn and in some cases instructed their visitors on how to search for a file in order to share download using peer to peer technology.
I am sick of this – maybe the gloves need to come off and the facts should be made known – Viacom/CBS/Cnet/Download.com knowingly built a Network of Peer to Peer Applications where minors were encouraged to pirate copyrighted material. Now they lobby for Internet control? So they can benefit from encouraging what they call criminal activity?
Want real criminal activity?
The corporate conglomerates like Time Warner /AOL and the other lobbyists for SOPA and PIPA are collecting millions of dollars in revenue directly from the creation of software download platforms that encourage illegal file sharing and sharing of illegal pornography. Plain and simple. The corporate media wants to now collect on their criminal activity through inducement. This is entrapment. This is more than just your freedom of speech – it is companies that allowed you to steal from them and then want you to be sued for millions of dollars and have laws made to control what you see and hear.
How in the hell can you get this information out on your website when you go dark for 24 hours? How is this helping anyone? This is insane!
Silence and going dark will do nothing to inform people that lobbyists for SOPA and PIPA will not be held accountable for their inducement.
These media entities gave us Bit torrent, Lime Wire, Kazza, Frost Wire and many others, as test IPTV platforms that they will use in order to monopolize the internet and force people to feed off of their distribution platform.
They now want to go legit – and we are ruining it for them. But you can keep the secret by going dark like Wikipedia.
Not informing people of how illegal this all is. How a cyber mob mentality has put us in the position of destroying the people’s press. How people will go to counter intuitive measures to somehow keep the dialogue from happening.
I am baffled that this is what we do when we are faced with an issue—we decide to do something passive aggressive. Someone is encouraging our silence and some people are deciding that it is the only way they can make a point.
I am not going dark or silent; I will not follow something that is counter intuitive.