The Day the Internet Stood Still

Yesterday (Wednesday, January 18), has a good chance as being remembered as the day that the Internet first truly showed its political clout in the US.  So far we have largely pointed at events abroad when discussing the Internet’s potential to shift power.  Web sites and services large and small (including Continuations) either forcefully alerted their users to the problems with SOPA/PIPA or blacked themselves out entirely.  At the 12th hour even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg took a (by now very safe) stand on the issue. 

The results from a political perspective were impressive.  SOPA had already been stalled a bit but PIPA support was still strong.  Following yesterday though 18 Senators including 7 co-sponsors withdrew their support for PIPA.  Someone with a better knowledge of the history of American politics will probably know the correct statistics but this is a massive erosion in the support for a bill.  Together with the White House’s stance against the bills in their current versions I believe that there is now a good chance to stop both SOPA and PIPA.  

What’s next?  First, as Ron Wyden makes clear in his terrific letter to the Internet there is still one more vote coming up on PIPA on January 24th so it is too early to declare victory.  Second, it is worth reading the MPAA’s reaction to yesterday’s expressions to see just how cynical their view of what happened is.  Third, unless we want a new wave of slightly different versions of these bills following the next election we need to proactively outline an alternative that is not based on government intervention in the Internet.  Fourth, and maybe most importantly, we need to start the long work on using the Internet to shift political power back to the voters and away from special interests more generally and not just with respect to bills that directly affect the Internet.