In case you missed it, the Web on Wednesday, January 18 basically revolted en masse against two pieces of anti-piracy legislation being considered by the U.S. Congress, with tens of thousands of websites going dark or “censoring” parts of their U.S. homepages in protest of the two bills — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
Now that the so-called “Blackout Day,” has come and gone, it is abundantly clear that the political winds in Washington have shifted in favor of the opposition. Numerous Republican former co-sponsors of PIPA have shifted sides, and far more lawmakers on both sides who hadn’t yet taken a stance have finally come out against the bills.
Perhaps more importantly, so, too, the SOPA and PIPA critics also seem to have achieved a decisive victory in greater public relations war.
Press outlets around the world covered the protests (and how could they afford not to, with some of the Web’s most popular pages —- Google, Wikipedia, even the executives of Facebook and Twitter, participating to varying extent?), with many articles painting the protesters in a sympathetic light.
Editorial boards at right-leaning and left-leaning publications have also written testy columns calling for the legislation to be scrapped (though notably, the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial applauding the bills, following in the footsteps of tweets made by Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of its parent company, News Corporation).
Now that the furor has died down, at least to a certain degree, various participants and observers have begun tallying the damage. Here’s “Blackout Day,” by the numbers so far:
7 Senators and former co-sponsors of PIPA defected and no longer support the bill, according to Ars Technica. Six were Republicans. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was the only Democratic Senator and co-sponsor to defect so far.
19 total Senators came out against PIPA, according to Ars Technica. A whip count and call notes are also available at OpenCongress.
3 Representatives and former co-sponsors of SOPA have withdrawn their support, according to The Library of Congress. They included Reps. Lee Terry (R-NE), Ben Quayle (R-AZ), and Tim Holden (D-PA).
40,000 websites completely blacked out, according to Fight For the Future, an advocacy organization that coordinated some of the protests.
30,000 additional websites that participated by altering their homepages in some other way, according to Fight For the Future.
4 of the top 10 most popular websites on the Internet participated in some way, according to Fight For the Future. (Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter).
5 protests in cities around the country, according to Las Vegas News. The cities were: New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.
An estimated 2,000 people turned out for the NY Tech Meetup protest in New York, according to organizers.
An estimated 200 coders turned out in San Francisco to protest the bills, according to Tech President.
162 million people saw the Wikipedia blackout page, according to Wikipedia. Upwards of 8 million people used a Wikipedia tool (which wasn’t blacked out) to contact their representatives.
At least 5 million people signed various online petitions against the legislation, according to Fight For the Future.
4.5 million people “signed” Google’s online petition against SOPA and PIPA, the Los Angeles Times reported.
2.4 million tweets about SOPA from 12 a.m. ET Wednesday to 4 p.m., according to Twitter. “Top 5 terms: SOPA, Stop SOPA, PIPA, Tell Congress.”
486 websites of member organizations of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) participated in the blackout, according to the PCCC.
210,000 people who signed the PCCC’s petition, according to the organization.
103,785 people who signed two online petitions against the bills on the White House’s petition website, according to newly released figures from the White House on Wednesday. These petitions, which had been active for weeks, prompted a White House response on Saturday seemingly against SOPA and PIPA in their current forms.
1 new alternative anti-piracy bill, the OPEN ACT, introduced to the U.S. House by SOPA critic Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).
Carl Franzen
Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
"The Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof...CONGRESS HAS NO AUTHORITY TO DELEGATE THIS RESPONSIBILITY TO THIRD PARTIES." US CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 1, SECTION 5, CLAUSE 8. THIS IS WHAT MAKES THE FEDERAL RESERVE PRIVATE CENTRAL BANK UNCONSTITUTIONAL! THE EMPEROR'S NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES! Abolishing the UnConstitutional Federal Reserve Private Central Bank, could also abolish the need to pay UnConstitutional personal income taxes. Let's tell Congress to pay the third party UnConstitutional Federal Reserve Private Central Bank a printing fee for printing our currency, not unpayable interest on every dollar. Thinking about the first dollar ever printed, How can INTEREST on a dollar ever be repaid if only a dollar exists in the economy? Permanent debt incarceration.
Yes, we need a Congressional central bank, but it should never be in private hands, like the Fed currently is! Beware of money changers, they killed Caesar when he abolished the personal income tax by abolishing Rome's Federal Reserve Private Central Bank!
Thanks for putting this out Carl. Glad to know that many people have participated to help save the Internet. This legislation would not stop piracy, it would instead pose a serious threat to social media and other websites. Just want to tell you, Mozilla now is doing some effort to ensure the safety of the Internet. if you want to get involved then you can check this https://donate.mozilla.org/page/s/SOPA?source=sopa...
this is why the democratic party will not retake congress, because democrats believe in big corp. and gov't over the people. if democrats are trying to stop piracy overseas, then why are they stomping on our freedoms?
Yawn.
@lamonth
1. Out of the 32 sponsors, 16 were Dem and 16 Repub. Both sides sponsored it.
2. If you even pay attention to the news even for 5 seconds, you know that Republicans are for big corps with all their tax cuts and loopholes for big business and the extremely wealthy
3. This is hardly a democratic government with a Republican controled House and the Senate is basically split, 53 Dem and 47 Repub.
So blaming the Democrats for this is just plain ignorant. Go back to Fox News and be brainwashed more please.
.
WOW...
Imagine if all these tech sites had rallied and led the citizenery to protest the recent NDAA legislation.
Oh well ... Priorities priorities...
~Red~
Red River Rover It wouldn't work, too many people are programmed to automatically think that anything that impedes the military even slightly is evil, because the military can do no wrong. Piracy legislation is one of the few areas where there is no partisanship so it's very easy to make a case of facts on and have it listened to by both sides of the aisle.When it comes to military issues though? Too many people come with pre-programmed partisan responses to have a sensible discussion. It would've backfired more then you might think.
Rachel Maddow showed a protest sign that said something close to "it's no longer OK to know nothing about the internet". I'd say it's perfectly OK when you're not making laws about it, but for congressmen to know nothing in 2012, it's not OK anymore. I think that might be part of what's behind this. Not just the provisions of specific bills, but that Congress will try to legislate with no concern for learning about it.
OK, I guess that's true of a lot of things.
You forgot this statistic:
1 former "Democratic" senator made a horse's ass of himself with a press release
agio Relevant: http://blog.mpaa.org/BlogOS/post/2012/01/17/Senato...
carlfranzenagio "A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."
He should have used the word 'swarthy' in there. 'Swarthy foreign criminals' sounds much scarier.
Flying Squidcarlfranzenagio Punishment projection. Who knew?
carlfranzenagio Wow. According to Chris Dodd, it's "dangerous" for people to actively engage the government using the 1st amendment when we disagree with their proposed policies.
hotchcarlfranzenagio IT'S TIME FOR DODD TO GO THEN.
aggsveprogressvhotchcarlfranzenagio Go where?
Flying Squidaggsveprogressvhotchcarlfranzenagio To senile dementia prevention classes
carlfranzenagio I heard that idiot on NPR yesterday, and it made me happy that I will never have to see him again in the Senate; he became a liability and knew it was his time to go. Not surprised to see him lobbying for big business.
Ask your candidate if they support forcing every U.S. Citizen to receive a RFID chip implant, so the ultraslick 1% can control and destroy you! And what should be the future of the Fed when its 100-Year UnConstitutional charter expires on December 23, 2013! History's Biggest Fraud, sheeple!
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