After the Blackout: PIPA and SOPA CO-Sponsors abort mission
Posted by Adriana Tayraco on Thu, Jan 19, 2012
**UPDATE: Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor for SOPA has released a statement on Friday January 20th indicating he is pulling the bill "until there is wider agreement on a solution". This decision comes after a heated couple of weeks where supporters and protesters had heated arguments and culminating on yesterday's blackout and several congressmen dropping their support for both PIPA and SOPA.
“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a statement Friday morning.
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The aftermath of the blackout is intense. If someone hadn’t heard of SOPA/PIPA before they sure know a lot about it now. The mainstream media and the average Joe have finally taken notice of intensity of the war between the entertainment industry and the Internet over SOPA. Every television network and newspaper has had to at least mention the initiative taken by Reddit and Wikipedia on January 18th.
I had a conversation with my neighbor this morning and he was telling me how he tried to access Wikipedia yesterday and was met with an anti-SOPA take action screen. He was clueless as to what SOPA was and what it was intending to do to the World Wide Web. Being a curious guy, he spent more time than he had planned reading and informing himself on SOPA through the Wikipedia page. His outrage was sincere and he is not alone. After more than 10,000 websites decided to shut down for 24hrs, Internet users around the world have had a wakeup call and have experienced what the consequences of SOPA would be.
But is it working?
At first glance, it seems to. Supporters for both PIPA and SOPA have been thinking it twice and some are already publicly opposing the bills claiming they now realize the full extent of the damage they can cause. PIPA co-sponsor and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has officially switched bands and pulled his name from the bill on Wednesday. SOPA co-sponsor and Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle did so on Tuesday. Sen. Rubio issued a statement via Facebook post:
“As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs.“However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.”
In addition, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch have also mentioned their plans to stop supporting SOPA. PIPA supporters are backing out with 18 senators previously in favor of PIPA now opposing it.
The aftermath
While it is unclear if the momentum that culminated on yesterday’s blackout had a significant influence on the number of detractors, it has been reported that various servers were slowed down and some crashed due to the high volume of SOPA complaints. Many of the large Internet companies have encouraged users like my neighbor to sign petitions and ask congress to stop SOPA. Websites belonging to various SOPA supporting senators were down yesterday and while this may send a louder message than any email or letter they receive, the final decision on the passing of the bill is still to be seen.
Where you affected?
Which pages did you try to access yesterday only to find out there were blocked? Are you pro or against SOPA? Let us know!