Google's homepage during the day of action against SOPA and PIPA
Today, hundreds of websites shut down either entirely or partially in order to educate their audiences about the dangers of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protct IP Act (PIPA). Then, in conjunction with dozens of activist organizations, they directed millions of people (
over 4.5 million from Google alone) to contact their senators and members of Congress in opposition to those bills. The result was amazing:
- As of this writing, 18 senators have declared their opposition to PIPA today. This brings the total number opposed to 33. Just one week ago, only five senators were opposed.
- The senators declaring their opposition are skewing Republican. While three of the original five opponents—Sens. Maria Cantwell, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Mark Warner and Ron Wyden—were Democrats, 18 of the 28 who have declared their opposition in the past week have been Republicans.
- In celebration of today, Sen. Ron Wyden, who led this fight for months and kept PIPA from passing almost single-handed, has penned a must-read letter (PDF) to "Innovators, Speakers and Agents for Change, The World Wide Web."
- Lest it seem all the action was in the Senate, Rep. Keith Ellison blacked out his website in protest against SOPA, while Rep. Allen West decided to oppose SOPA in order to stick it to Eric Holder. Also, several co-sponsors of SOPA in the House pulled their support.
- In New York City, close to 1,000 people held an off-line rally against PIPA outside the offices of Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. A lengthy, archived video of the event can be seen here.
- DaMadFiddler collected a great series of screencaps of many of the sites that participated in the protest.
- Facebook and twitter joined in, sort of.
- Mother Jones collected a series SOPA jokes on Twitter.
- Weatherdude sums up why this was such an important tactical move.
Over 22,000 Kossacks
contacted their senators today, and more than 75,000 have taken action in the last two months. A big thanks to each and every one of you for making this one of the more successful days of action I can ever remember.