New Media Giants Take Out Print Ad Against SOPA 234
itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will recall that the SOPA hearings earlier this week 'excluded any witnesses who advocate for civil rights. Google's Katherine Oyama was the only witness to object to the bill in a meaningful way.' So to get the attention of lawmakers, new media giants Google, Facebook, and Zynga turned to the only place they knew that politicians gather daily. They took out a full page ad in the New York Times. The irony of taking out a newspaper ad to protect the Web is certainly lost on no one."
Protecting interests? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just who's interests are these entities protecting, Ours, or their own?
Google owns Youtube. I dont think I need to explain that.
Facebook sells people's personal data, including photos, to advertisers.
Zygna has been embroiled at least once for outright stealing of graphical assets from other commercial games companies.
I am not saying to look the gift horse in the mouth here-- if it gets our dumbass leaders to shelve their onerous legislation and bury it at sea without honors, I am all for it, but I draw the line at saying these corporations represent *MY* interests.
Why doesn't Google... (Score:5, Insightful)
Grow a pair and put something about it on their logo/main search page? They can change it for International-Paper-Mache-With-Your-Kids Day, but not for THIS??!?
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, they could be really direct and block Google/Facebook for congressional IP ranges.
Now that would be ironic.
Re:Why NY Times? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Protecting interests? (Score:5, Insightful)
a good idea considering the audience (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering how disconnected politicians and lawmakers are from technology issues in general, i think it's a fairly good idea to post the ad in a newspaper. Seems to me this bill should be stopped with all means available...
Re:Old as shit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an article linking anyone who supports the BSA to supporting SOPA. Just because a company supports the BSA does not mean they support SOPA. They might and they might not.
Personally, I don't presume guilt by association.
Re:They should get serious (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that's plan B. It's usually better to start small with methods of persuasion, rather than just bringing out the big guns right away.
Remember, most Google, Facebook, and YouTube users don't know squat about SOPA and have never heard of it; they don't read Slashdot. Shutting down these sites all of a sudden over an issue that no one's heard of is only going to create a lot of anger. Don't forget, Google has an active competitor called Bing that people could easily switch to, and it's backed by a company that's probably A-OK with SOPA. The last thing Google needs is to cause most of their users to switch to Bing during a brief "strike", and then never return.
Re:Corporations protect us from (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporations are the government.
Fixed that for you. If it weren't for corporations' reckless control of the government, this wouldn't have happened.
Re:Lobby (Score:2, Insightful)
Like Sony did? Let's see Microsoft owning Warner Brothers and IBM buying 20th Century Fox... that's about as appealing as Big Tobacco owning Kraft foods..., oh wait [wikipedia.org].
Re:Lobby (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one of the reasons I kind of hope it does pass initially it will cause a lot of problems (technical and otherwise). But we'll have to come up with solutions to those problems and when they really want to censor us it will be a lot more difficult. Where as if it doesn't pass it will likely be replaced shortly by more reasonable and enforceable means of censorship.
I think that's actually a bit too optimistic. What Hollywood, "traditional media", Politicians and associated Moneypolists want is to turn the web into Television. They want a one-way medium to distribute their content, whether it be entertainment, political platform or other stuff they sell. They don't want the regular Joe to generate their own content, hence the extremes they go to brand anything not made by them as spurious and pirated.
If this law was to remain, it would cement their grip on the medium so they can turn it into the advertisement broadcast platform they want it to be: sanitized, monetized and sales-orientated. They want to know who you are and where you are so you can't dodge them; they want you to be a trapped consumer, and they want to keep tabs on you to better tailor their efforts at shovelling their crap down your throat. This is why that MoFo Murdoch (or was it Turner?) said the Internet should have been patented from the start. This is why politicians and law enforcement agencies everywhere want it muzzled, they don't want disent they want obedience and mindless consumerism.
If they really want their attention... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google and Facebook can drop the politicians who support this bill from their respective sites....completely. Sorry, Congressman, you don't turn up in search any more, no Facebook page. Oh, and that email to your constituents? Sorry, gmail doesn't recognize your account.
Cut the Cord (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lobby (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not just about money paying for corruption of politics via lobbying it is about censoring and silencing the voices of opposition. It was visible in the attack upon OWS when cities around the US coordinated their attack upon the OWS movement via the Federal government.
The US government knows full well it works in opposition to the wishes of the majority, it has known that for that last thirty years, which is why corporate controlled mass media worked so hard at silencing the voices of the majority whilst pretending the corporate marketing voice was the voice of the majority.
The problem is we have allowed psychopaths and narcissist to gain control of major corporations and the government, these people will not let go the levers of power without a fight, a destructive fight which they will orchestrate.
The only place to tackle this mess is in the US primaries, the active will of the OWS movement to replace corporate stooges with representatives of the people. First step fight people to apply and start openly and publicly testing them. Test their health, intelligence, knowledge and most important of all their psychological state.
Re:Lobby (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's actually a bit too optimistic. What Hollywood, "traditional media", Politicians and associated Moneypolists want is to turn the web into Television. They want a one-way medium to distribute their content, whether it be entertainment, political platform or other stuff they sell. They don't want the regular Joe to generate their own content, hence the extremes they go to brand anything not made by them as spurious and pirated.
If this law was to remain, it would cement their grip on the medium so they can turn it into the advertisement broadcast platform they want it to be: sanitized, monetized and sales-orientated. They want to know who you are and where you are so you can't dodge them; they want you to be a trapped consumer, and they want to keep tabs on you to better tailor their efforts at shovelling their crap down your throat. This is why that MoFo Murdoch (or was it Turner?) said the Internet should have been patented from the start. This is why politicians and law enforcement agencies everywhere want it muzzled, they don't want disent they want obedience and mindless consumerism.
And I want a pony. I think they will find putting the cat back in the bag to be more of a problem than they think. Especially, since we no longer have a real interest in the bag...
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
A page with explanation instead of no page would be better.
Re:Obama and Silicon Valley (Score:3, Insightful)
"The President of the United States and all of Congress is basically going to tell Silicon Valley to go fuck off."
He will get a very unpleasant surprise on the next fund-raising trip if he tries that.
He'll have more than enough money to beat the yahoos on the other side. And even if he signs SOPA, I'll still vote for him, only because I know the fascist on the other side would have signed SOPA *and* reinstated Don't Ask Don't Tell.
Re:So the mere fact that the industry is buying ad (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that if you can choose the issues that get media attention then you can choose the winner. As between a candidate that agrees with the majority of a district on 80% of the important issues vs. one that agrees on substantially fewer, you would expect the first candidate to win. But if you throw ten million dollars behind a campaign to bring the the remaining 20% of issues to the forefront of the debate, you cause the "better" candidate to lose. Which you can do merely because you disagree with the candidate on one of the issues for which that candidate agrees with the majority of the district, if you have a big enough pile of money.
You don't even have to find issues where the candidate disagrees with the majority. If the majority of the district supports strong measures against illegal immigration and so does the candidate, but 80% of Spanish-speaking constituents strongly oppose those measures, you run ads describing the candidate's position in Spanish. If the candidate is pro choice, you run ads on religious TV networks. If the candidate is pro life, you run ads on liberal women's networks. If the candidate opposes further unfunded increases in Medicare benefits, you put ads in AARP publications, etc.
It's easy to destroy an honest candidate by telling the truth in inconvenient places.
Re:Obama and Silicon Valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Gotta love the US two-party system.
Re:What a useless article... (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how the ad tacks on "and job creation" in several places.
Good to know atleast the "buzzword inserter" hasn't lost his job.
"Job creation"... It's always fun to see a corporation twist a necessity of business into an act of kindness.
Re:Obama and Silicon Valley (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy fucking jesus christ on a rotating spit, how many times do we have to say that IT ISN'T A TWO PARTY SYSTEM.
Re:Protecting interests? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, society does benefit greatly when enlightened self-interest, through capitalism, works. It's what has created the highest living standards and levels of individual freedom humans have ever known, and for more people over a longer time, than anything else ever tried.
But, on the other hand, the best average standard and happiness comes through balancing capitalism with socialism in a democracy. And your US freedoms are quickly eroding.
No, capitalism works to funnel money into ever fewer hands. Capitalism wants real freedom for the richest. Damn the consequences for anyone else.
What really is good for a society is democracy and education. These are not automatically provided by capitalism.
Even if capitalism could be said to have been the shit for a period in history, it's not doing us much more good now. The US is in a sorry state, humanity-wise and freedom-wise.
Thank you capitalism for all the burgers and denim and rock 'n' roll, but onwards from here democratic socialism is the way to go.
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he is saying that there is more to this world than USA, and by allowing SOPA and PROTECT IP, USA will effectively isolate themselves from the rest of the world.
This in turn means that USA won't benefit from what Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the rest of the world invents, which means the rest of the world will outrun USA when it comes to technology. In fifty years USA will still be stuck with 2010 tech while Europe etc will have 2060 tech. Both SOPA and PROTECT IP will drag down USA in the mud. Shame, really, since the US had some really great things going for it...
Re:The arrogance of little boys (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are 40 then computers were a part of your childhood
Nonsense. If you are 40 then you were born in 1970. Home computing started to appear in the very late '70s, but didn't become common until the '90s. I'm just under 30, and at least half of the people I knew growing up didn't have a home computer. When I came to university, a lot of my friends didn't have their own computer (well, all of my geek friends did). I bought the computer I took to university with money from a summer job, and it cost about as much as four months rent in student accommodation. People who had to work a part-time job to afford the rent certainly couldn't afford one.
It would be more accurate to say 'if you are 40, middle class, and from a family with a technical background who thought computers were important, then computers were a part of your childhood'. If you were poor, they were not. If your parents didn't think computers were important, they were not.
Re:Protecting interests? (Score:5, Insightful)
Know some other losers?
How about slahshdot? How about any forum period. Equestriadaily? gone. Penny-arcade? gone. Stackoverflow? gone.
All it takes is someone purposefully posting copyrighted stuff to any of those pages and the site can be blocked.
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because it's often the case that laws passed by the US government target the whole world.
Re:The arrogance of little boys (Score:5, Insightful)
Just nit-picking here, but he did not actually mention "home computers" or "personal computers"; he just said "computers".
Access to other computers is even rarer. Schools typically didn't have them at all, universities did but access was limited to a science and engineering students. If you didn't encounter a computer until you arrived at university, then you can hardly be said to grow up with them.
I'm in my 50s, and I have used computers since my teens
I'm in my 20s and can dance argentine tango, but neither of these facts lets you extrapolate to the general population. A few people in their '40s and '50s grew up using computers, but most did not.
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that would be ferronic, wouldn't it?
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it still doesn't really matter much when the only realistic choices for office are chosen for us ahead of time by the kingmakers at the GOP and DNC.
Yes, I know that anyone can technically run for office, but we all know that the only way to compete with the GOP and the DNC is to have their monetary resources so as to plaster your face and message on every billboard and television screen and radio within your voting district. I actually follow politics pretty closely in my corner of the country and every time there's a vote there are still people on the ballot I've never even heard of, have no website, have no information about them or their platforms at all.
Plus, after Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 and we ended up with that idiot George W. Bush as President a lot of people started really voting for the lesser of two evils in earnest. What other choice do the people have? Support a fringe candidate that is just not going to win, period? Or throw your hat in with the guy you disagree with the least that may actually win the election?
I say this, of course, because I'm sitting here wondering what the hell I'm going to do in 2012. I'm severely pissed off at Obama for all the campaign promises he reneged on (Gitmo, the wars, campaign reform, regulatory reform...I could go on and on and on) but what am I supposed to do if he's up against someone like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, that want to roll back civil rights to the 50's and start throwing gays into reeducation centers? I can vote for a third party, but we all know that is throwing your vote away, especially as regards a Presidential Election. Ross Perot and Ralph Nader got a whopping 18.9% and 2.7% of the popular vote, respectively. [wikipedia.org] Neither won any electoral votes at all. You have to go back 100 years to the election of 1912 to find a third party candidate that got more than 20% of the vote, and that was Teddy fucking Roosevelt, one of the greatest President's this country has ever had in history, beloved by almost everyone. He managed to get a whole 27% of the vote running under the Bull Moose party, and this is one of four people on Mount Rushmore for Christ's sake...
So what do I do? Vote my conscience and throw my vote away on a third party? Or do my part to try and make sure that we don't turn into a fucking Christian Theocracy where abortion is murder, even in cases of rape, vaccines cause autism and are therefore banned, no mosques within 1000 feet of a government building, ridiculous shit like that? I'm heartily sick of voting for the lesser of two evils, but short of pulling an Egypt and overthrowing our government, I see no other recourse. We need to sever the ties between wealth and politics in this country, but I see no legal way to do so. There won't ever be one, there is no incentive for any of our sitting reps to change these things, and the only way one can even achieve these offices is by allowing yourself to be corrupted by this system in the first place.
So what do we do? Seriously, someone tell me how the hell we can solve these problems without plunging our country into anarchy, because I just see no other way at all...
Re:Why not use their own sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the real world.
In the starting days of the automobile, the horse farmers and buggy whip manufacturers managed to come up with all sorts of insane fucking laws. For instance, these [trafficticketsecrets.com]. In a few states, you had to have a flagman walk in front of your car (yes WALK) waving a flag and beeping a horn to "warn" drivers of horse-drawn carriages that one of these crazy horseless contraptions was coming through.
Eventually, good sense prevailed, and the buggy whip manufacturers fell to their proper place in history... but some of these crazy stupid laws remain on the books, just unenforced.
Likewise, we'll probably see the same thing happen here. "Piracy", as the MafiAA goons tell it, is killing their ability to rip off artists of money. Sooner or later, the artists will find a way to make money that doesn't involve the goons and the illegal MafiAA price-fixing monopolies. It's already starting to happen. "Piracy" is also, thanks to fucked up copyright laws, becoming the only way to preserve our digital history; in the meantime, plenty has been lost, such as software for the Cray-1 [chrisfenton.com] that wasn't preserved and that can't be run on other platforms. The Apple II/e library is preserved only because "pirates" have preserved most of it and crafted emulation for it. Similar for most of the early Commodore computers, the Atari lines... DosBox almost REQUIRES that you have "pirate" software that ran on 5 1/4" disk in order to run it (e.g. "copy the disk") for some of the oldest stuff it runs, but modern computers don't even have the connections required to attach an actual 5 1/4" disk even if you could find media that hasn't succumbed to bit-rot.
It's impossible to say that copyright is meaningful when so much of "copyrighted" products today is covered by a law that lasts 100x longer than the expected platform lifespan. That's just ridiculous on the face of it and deliberately breaks the contract between copyright holders and society, which is that the copyrighted work WILL enter the public domain as repayment to the public for the grant of LIMITED duration monopoly.