Many web businesses, search engines, & Web-based information sources are now seriously talking about some sort of simultaneous suspension of operations in protest of the Internet censorship bills, SOPA (House version) & PIPA (Senate version).
In the comment section of Chris Bowers' diary yesterday about the proposed strike, several commenters had differing ideas as to how long such a strike must last in order to be effective. I'd like to continue that discussion here.
My contention: Such a strike should last at least a week.
My reasoning below the Kos Wingding....
Less than a day: Dismissible as background noise
With all due respect to the commenter who suggested shutting down for an hour or so, that would simply not be enough to get attention. The business world periodically deals with viruses that take more time than that to counter.
Likely reaction: "What's this? Some kind of prank? Oh, good, back up again. Back to work..."
Day or so: Dismissible as "cheap stunt"
Others have mentioned a full-day strike, especially on the day before one of the major votes (presumably the SOPA markup or the PIPA cloture/floor vote). While marginally better, this would still be unlikely to rattle the all-too-cooshy lives of the business & political classes in the way that is needed.
Likely reaction: "Oh, pay it no mind. Just a bunch of anti-business hippies. They'll be gone by tomorrow."
Week or more: Notable disruption of Net activity & e-commerce
In order for people to really get what a lot of us have been shouting about for several months now, a good week or longer without search engines, without Wikipedia, without YouTube, without eBay & other important commerce tools, without being able to Tweet or chat about one's kittycats on Facebook — without being able to go to those sites without being reminded that Congress wants to make this deprivation permanent — may just afflict enough of the comfortable to at least get them to do start complaining. Complaining to friends & co-workers/classmates... complaining to their families... complaining, perhaps, to Congress by less-ignorable phone & "snail-mail" (& then, with the rest of us, complaining about lame canned responses from same)... & complaining to local legacy-media outlets, whose own activities will be disrupted as well (then, likewise, joining the rest of us complaining about the legacy-media blackout on this, maybe in big enough numbers at last to finally start breaking it).
Seriously, consider how fast it takes one of those Gaga videos to shoot up to a several hundred million YouTube views. If just 1 of every hundred of them gets steamed enough to give Congress an earful, that's several million calls right there. Now imagine that multiplied several hundred times again.
One of the most important reminders that the netroots — & now Silicon Valley itself — can give people is how just how much our 21st-century society depends on the free flow of data around the world without having to beg permission from gatekeepers, or worse settle for the useless & inane spin of last century's media giants. Maybe a week-plus without the new media that we all depend on will be what it takes to deliver that reminder on a silver platter.
What are your thoughts?