SOPA Protests
- January 18, 2012 9:18 AM
- General, Google, Web Trends
- Comments (0)
Today a portion of the web did something that I don't think we've seen before; website "black outs" and other activities to raise awareness for a legal issue. No matter your thoughts on SOPA I find it fascinating to see activism on this scale on-line; this isn't just a few fringe sites saying "legalize it" or "bring our troops home" this is major, major players in our web-economy taking a stand on a political issue. Given that most of these sites will be back to normal tomorrow, I'm going to try to capture screen shots of at least a few of the participating websites.
The List
Probably the most visible comment against SOPA will me Google's blacked-out logo:
Google looses some points though for not actually blacking itself out, I can understand where there business model wouldn't allow it. That makes the blackout that is probably affecting the most people that of Wikipedia's English site.
Heck, Wikipedia even drug CNN into covering the outage:
Another highly visible protest would be that of the Cheez Burger Network, who are responsible for all kinds of websites like I Can Haz Cheez Burger, FailBlog, and The Daily What.
Also on the comedic-but-high-impact list is Reddit's website:
Both Ars Technica and TechCrunch were up and running, but they both choose to sport an alternate design to show their opposition to SOPA.
Although its not always the most well respected site online, you have to admit, not having access to Craig's List for your local area is a bit of a headache.
SOPA Opposition saw some support from some unusual places like Greenpeace.
Mojang is there too, but choose a nice bold red unlike the dark colors everyone else is sporting.
Mozilla took it's homepage down for SOPA Strike, too.
O'reilly Media, who publish books in physical and digital mediums.
Some solidarity from overseas at OSNews.
Some protests were smaller, like that at TwitPic
And my favorite protest is probably that at The Oatmeal. Leave a web comic writer to sum it up perfectly. This is especially interesting since The Oatmeal has been ripped off by people who would be labeled as infringers under SOPA. Check out the animated .gif on the site (I'll hard link it after it moves off the main page).
Send Me Your Screen Caps
Find some other SOPA protests? Grab a screen cap and link it here... these things will be gone tomorrow, so move quick and get some documentation.
