Hollywood has political power far beyond its financial power because of its ability to influence voters. The internet industry has that power too, but it's afraid to use it.

If Google and Facebook were to demonstrate that power once, on an issue that most of their users will agree with, the industry would get a lot more respect in D.C.

I think that the general suggestion of a more tepid response (that is, blacking the background of google/facebook but leaving everything else usable), would probably be completely ineffective. Most people are incredibly unconcerned with things on the internet that they might have to read, so if an ad comes up or something that you can click through, people will click through without reading it because they've been to Forbes enough times to have that behavior trained into them. Unless they commit to a total blackout of their usual features, you can expect very little response from users.

Watch out for movement fatigue. The Internet Filter/Censorship blackout happened in Australia; it was partially successful in the filter not being mandatory. But the biggest ISPs are pushing filters on their customers 'voluntarily' with government money (Capitalist take: Internet Censored cheaper than Internet Freedom) taking after UK.

Unrelated to blackout, but the other big ISPs not forcing the filter on customers decided to police users for copyright infringement.

Such unrelenting copyright industry anti-Internet parasites.

In the short term: instant win. really. as stated by others in the thread, practically 100% of the internet start their days in one of these core services, google, facebook, yahoo, tumblr, twitter, etc.

In the long run though, dangerous move, as every politician alive in every(!) nation would start work on curtailing the obvious power in these companies hands demonstrated by such an event. but win? hell yes. no question.

Someone likened it with a "6k km meteor", aka world-killer, and that was probably spot on. On one hand I would love seing it, and think of how powerless all these politicians would feel, but fear indeed the results further down the line. politicians like power...

Why leave it to the big guys to take the initiative? Larger players only jumped aboard the godaddy boycott after the grassroots push gained enough momentum that they'd look bad if they sat on their hands.

We should take the same approach here. Set a day, then gather as many companies and individuals as possible who will pledge to shut down their sites and replace them with anti-SOPA information and calls to action. Once momentum is established, then call out the big corporations and challenge them to stand up for their supposed values alongside the rest of the web. They will find this much more difficult to decline.

That's not nuclear.

Nuclear would be: you vote for SOPA you will be blacklisted from ever using google, gmail, facebook, twitter, aws. Your campaign, personal, and business websites will never appear in google searches. Your books will never be sold on amazon. You will never be allowed to have a google account, upload videos to youtube, or own an android device.

That is nuclear.

Taking a devil's advocate perspective: this would be perceived as corporate blackmail, an attempted takeover of the democratic process by industry.

Even though such an approach may have plenty of support, especially in our communities, I wonder if it wouldn't turn off non-technical moderates in a much bigger way.

Are we talking about just painting those websites black, or turning completely off for the day with a directed message telling you where to contact your representatives?

The latter option would truly be "nuclear", but would Google/Facebook/et al put up with a day without those ad revenues? Would it be worth the loss in the long run?

Nuclear is a excellent metaphor. Because Google, Twitter and Amazon actively doing something similar to what Tumblr did(instigating their users to protest) would be too extreme. Tumblr has only a few million users; Google and Amazon together have much, much more. I can hardly wrap my mind around the implications and ramifications of such a move.

I don't think they're gonna do it. I think they're gonna choose a subtler strategy.

In the fantasy land of my mind, I'd prefer it if some of those large companies could cut deals with other governments to create pro-Internet laws and then move their headquarters abroad. If SOPA is passed the US deserves no less than total decimation of their position as a technological leader.

Who is John Galt?

Never thought about Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc, going black and telling you to contact representatives. But it would be not "nuclear", it would be "6000km diameter meteorite". Think about it: almost 100% of people connected to the Internet would be concerned about SOPA. Really, really concerned. I don't think neither representatives nor Hollywood industry would support this pressure.

what would happen if Google, Bing (and by association Yahoo), made all SOPA-supporting properties disappear from organic and ad-sponsored searches.

my bet - the bill would be be dead within days, they have no obligation to service SOPA supporters.

If Google and Facebook are going to start using their websites to influence politics, maybe it's time for companies to start lobbying them instead of Washington directly.

Couldn't they just devote, say, half the above-the-fold screen space to a banner about SOPA for a couple days? Definitely gets people's attention, especially if coordinated across the internet, without pissing them off too much. It would link to a page that names names and gives action steps for users.

Is there a compelling reason they couldn't do this or that it wouldn't work?

I’d like to see something with more teeth, and less potential for antagonizing disinterested users (which most are). I fear that this would satisfy us emotionally more than it would effect change.

Which is an occasion for more creative thinking. The most important point, which the article mentions, is that Google et al have a direct relationship with users, and goodwill.

It needs to speak to users in non-strident tones, and engage on a level that users might care about. In turn, it must engage those users to do something that politicos will actually fear.

Perhaps something like “click here and Google will donate $1 to [politician’s rival]”. Or, Google simply gives $1 to an effective organization for every unique SOPA search.

Hopefully the threat is enough. If I'm Google I'm strategically going to leak out plans (memos, design mocks, etc) for a blackout to see if it makes a difference without actually having to do it. They just have to be ready to back it up if it's not enough.

Huge play if they pull this off. This could really set the stage for increased leverage as we move into 2012. There must be a show of strength that strikes at the core of the D.C. machine. This isn't just over people downloading Ashton Kutcher movies, this is about taking down startups that are in direct competition with the distribution players, this is about going for the juglar and using Congress to pick winners. Google, Facebook, Ebay, Twitter, Paypal, Wikipedia and everyone else needs to step their game up; this is going to be a long haul.

Google, Apple, Facebook, etc., should just buy these media giants. The RIAA and MPAA would become like cockroaches ripe for stomping upon. That would be the real and permanent nuclear option.

Wouldn't this just invite retaliations in the form of a massive deluge of pro-SOPA television commercials? There are a lot of folks who use Facebook/Google/Wikipedia, but I'd bet there are many more who watch TV, especially among the demographic who will fall for the "we gotta stop the pirates or the terrorists/drug dealers/child molesters will win!" tactic.

I know there is a pro-SOPA commerical going around, but given that I've only seen it aired once, it doesn't seem

I wonder how effective it might be, in addition, for major sites to point directly to user generated content on their sites, posted by both well knowns and unknowns, and assert that that specific content would cause trouble for both the poster and the site.

Bonus points if someone points to all infringing content on members of Congress sites, a la the recent Congressional torrent torrent.

There are far more elegant, insidious ways to destroy SOPA using the powers that SOPA opponents possess than something as cheap as a blackout.

I do like the idea of PR hype surrounding the threat of blackout though. Just publicizing the potential threat of the 'nuclear option' in the press for a week should be enough to get congress to back off.

Nuclear war isn't the sort of thing that usually produces winners.

I have a hard time seeing Google in particular starting a nuclear war over this. They value relationships with big content providers and have done a lot to build them. If a drastic action leads content providers to pull out of YouTube, Google Music, Google TV, etc., it would hurt Google quite a bit. Users care a lot less about YouTube than they care about what they can watch on YouTube, and the most popular videos are "official" music videos.

It is rare that huge consumer companies allow legislative fights to spill over and impact their core business. It usually just annoys customers rather than generating any sort of meaningful grassroots bump.

Upvoted for some honest-to-god, decent insightful writing. (not something I normally expect when I click a cnet link)

SOPA is all over hacker news and other tech feeds, but I have seen nothing on the television news outlets (CNN, FoxNews). Obviously, they want to see this slip through... they are all owned by big media business who are probably supporters.

Join in the Google Bomb of GoDaddy:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393177