This is something I penned prior to reading this, whilst on holiday. It will probably be published somewhere eventually when complete, but seems directly relevant to this.. so have a draft. It may be lacking in places as a current work in progress. ---- So we had a revolt on the internet; some large websites protested actual real life laws which ostensibly led them to be canned. At least, that is the story the media (and the activists) are telling you. Right now on sites such as Reddit this is being lauded as a great success, even those cautioning that it is not the last we will see of SOPA's proponents (a good position to take) are talking positively. The media loves the story and apparently big government has been put in their place. At this point any good sceptic likely smells a rat, and they are right to do so. Politics is a game, a game that politicians are bred to play. I know this because, having spent several years helping fight stupid law making, I've seen all the tricks. And, boy, have we been played. Don't get me wrong; I have enourmous respect for Reddit, its community and their ideals. It is very compelling that such a diverse group of people can come together on the internet and do good things, rather than just endless trolling and rick rolls. And I don't really mean SOPA, I mean the other stories you hear like "I am poor and need help buying medication for my sick aunt" and Reddit figures out if it is true or not, then raises $100,000 in a few days. Ok, so it's an exercise in groupthink. But who cares (and that is not sarcasm), the sick aunt gets the money. And then we have Wikipedia; one of the largest examples of narcissism and groupthink on the internet (I'm allowed, as an established editor, to say that because I am part of the problem - do you edit selflessly?). Right now there is much patting of backs on the effectiveness of the protest/blackout. This may not be a popular view, but it is pure navel gazing. SOPA is not the first example of internet lobbying/activism going wrong. Wikileaks, for example, was well positioned to whistleblow goverments and corporations. For a brief time they were the darlings of front line media.Then we saw messy internal politics, a guy unable to control his ego and some badly managed security issues. Some theorists reckon there was a conspiracy by the US government to kill of Wikileaks as a threat. I don't doubt they are write; in fact it's pretty much public knowledge that the government wanted them gone - but there was no need to send in the operatives when you have an arsenal of media friendly weapons. And the press dropped Wikileaks faster than... well, you get the picture. Then we have anonymous - a radical grass roots movement that, even though it did naughty things, was OK because it fed our narcissism (or perhaps media narcissism, it's hard to separate). When they posted messages against Scientology and hacked Tom Cruise's email[1] it was fine because Scientology is disturbing and dangerous anyway (the media are allowed to attack such establishments, even about powerful ones, if we socially agree - because if you sue, well, the Judge and jury are part of society too). Even when it expanded that was OK, because people doing not-socially-acceptable acts (like hounding some kid in America till she has to go into hiding) can be disclaimed from a movement with "no organisation". Yet, now we have an "unofficial" spokesman for anonymous. Trust me when I say that guy isn't in it for the idealism; he is, of course, a narcissist out for attention. And the media love him, of course they do, because he is the overweight, slightly dorky Everyman that represents the exact image of the internet the want to feed us. And he has "secret informations", the public lap that one up. It's the closest to seeing a real life spy that most of us will get. But where coverage started out positive, vigilante justice by "people like you", we now have an entirely different picture. Now the story is about a slightly disturbing unknown movement acting as the modern anarchists, hitting bad corporations because they can. The facts are much the same as before, but we get the scary spin now because the public lost interest in the other version. And most recently we have the Occupy movement - a group that are closely tied to the internet and have made almost all of the same mistakes as those that came before (namely; lack of focus, pride in "no leadership", etc.). And, so, now the media focus is no longer on "what to do about the screwy financial system" but on protesters being gassed and all of the legal efforts to kick them out of parks. For the 99% that is a much juicer story, after all it doesn't affect them like that finance stuff did. News at 10; people much prefer stories of police abuse than hearing about how damaged their own finances are. The protest has finally gotten a focus; they are protesting about their right to protest. I hope the irony is not lost on them. So, back to SOPA. It has been framed as a Hollywood vs. The Internet by some. That framing has been rejected in favour of "the peoples revolt" by others. And it was roundly considered a win. Sadly, that's not the case. Law making, as I said, is a game. I worry that people are standing around saying "lots of people called their politicians, and that got them to change their stance". It didn't, of course, but lets imagine it did. Think about why their stance changed. Was it because they suddenly were exposed to the arguments against SOPA? Or was it because they finally saw how much opposition it had in the public realm? Trick question, it's probably neither. What happened is that they saw a media shitstorm approaching and neatly sidestepped it. The bill was politically dead anyway, switching to opposition on Jan 18 was a fairly obvious idea. I guarantee every one of those politicos at some dinner somewhere will cite it as an example of them listening to the people. The worrying thing is we are talking about the millions of people who contacted their politicians to protest, somewhere I read it was about 10 million, and this is called a big number. Some 3% of the population of the US. I was talking to one of my friends, who volunteers to answer phones for a US senator, about this and he laughed "10 million is nothing. Do you know how many people called about Prop 8?" We are lying to ourselves anyway, because this is not about the people. It is about media pressure - that is how you attack Washington. Ask a man on the street, who is sure to have seen a news report about it somewhere, and ask them about SOPA. Guaranteed they won't have a clue what it is, but they will probably know Wikipedia protested about it. See the issue; for a protest that was intended to raise public awareness of the issues it didn't really do that... So, no, people calling in didn't end this. What ended this, apart from the media, was a simple political manoeuvre called "bait and switch". Proponents, being savvy politicians, certainly knew that it would be a controversial piece of legislation. Indeed I am sure they knew it would be dead at some point - that's why when you initially see bills such as this they are so outrageous. Here's how it works. They make it as outrageous as possible, push all the buttons to see who pushes back. Then they water it down and let the bill deflate and die, they hand you the battle field. And, finally, select parts (the bits they wanted all along) are pushed through later whilst you are looking the other way. It's no accident that this is election year. It's weird that we see this happen over and over and, yet, plunge on regardless. Do we like being manipulated? But here is the crux of the problem; the SOPA protest, as with many previous protests, is being lauded as a disorganised collective. The people speaking up of their own volition. It certainly was that - but I don't see why anyone should laud the idea. The problem is not the disorganisation, that's a good thing because it is disruptive. The problem is that the collective consistently fails to understand how to play the game. Anonymous failed the PR game, Wikileaks couldn't understand that "putting US servicemen at risk" is a silver bullet for big-government and Occupy-Everything got bullied into accepting a storyline not of their own choosing. The SOPA protest tried to play the game of politicians and, to me, appears to have been left reeling. Perhaps long term it will work out, but I am highly skeptical given the past precedents. We were baited into firing our guns early. Wikipedia blacking out is a huge move that reaches millions of people, but there is only so many times you can do it before the disgruntlement outweighs opposition - and when the public is moaning that is what the media will pick up on. So when SOPA-like legislation rears its head again (and it will) what will you do? What's the next step, the next threat? And believe me, it doesn't take much for the story to switch - and when it does that video of Wikimedia foundation staff cheering as the shut down goes into effect will come back to bite. As everyone likes to point out; once it is on the internet it won't go away! As with any threat, once you use it the usefulness diminishes rapidly. The game, which we've misunderstood, is to get the other side to play their card. Darrell Issa, who lead political opposition, understands this because he understands the game. Look carefully at what he did once SOPA was dead and waiting to be buried on Jan 15; sure he told us about the postponement. But you notice he also cancelled the hearings and actions he was taking within congress, he rested his guns. Sadly we didn't take the cue. We pulled the trigger, which is what they were hoping for. Any regular observer or politics will notice the grace with which this was pulled off; by the time SOPA hit mainstream media it was dead and politicians were ready with their lines about how they were already listening to the public voice. And the media response has made us feel like we have a voice, that they have to listen to us now. Sadly, history shows us it doesn't work like that. I have good proof of this; which is that the the media story wasn't really about how bad SOPA was. It was about the fact that Wikipedia was blacking out in protest. See the difference? SOPA isn't good news because it means the media has to take a stance and sell it to the public - that's divisive. But an internet protest is a good story - and if they can spin that out again, even as an attack on the activists, they will do. The politicians forced this switch of focus. Right now there are reporters hunting for stories like "my son died because I couldn't read Wikipedia and see that his symptoms meant he had hours left to live". I'm only partly joking - this really is how the media works. As my creative writing tutor impressed on me once; "Wikipedia protests law" is a happening, "Wikipedia protest kills babies" is a story. At least Reddit has taken the next step - they have a new and unusual threat[2], which is to actively try and displace senators who supported the bill. It probably won't work this time, but it's a threat that could well work in the future (the power of that community is astounding, and still growing fast) and so, now, the politicos have to seriously consider that even pulling back at the last minute might not save them. I hate to give criticism without contributing advice on how to improve. I think the key here is to simply be persistent. This got stopped because the media ran the story making it a lot less good to be involved with SOPA. We have lost our key weapon, holding the internet hostage. This is the win or lose moment when, on the back foot, you fire whatever else you have left until the idea is so poisonous no one will dare touch it. The moral of this story is as follows: understand the game you are playing, then disrupt it. Learn from this. 1. I have no idea if they did this exactly, but you get the idea. 2. Well, it's been tried before many many times - but not quite on this scale and with such funding. --------- Yes we are the "creators" and "innovators". We do indeed make the stories. But we aren't the media industry (at least in the sense of communicating with the mass public) and we don't *tell *the story. That is what the media does. To believe we told this story is dangerous. :) (I realise the dissenting view is a minority around here, but there you go) Tom On 9 February 2012 22:04, Jay Walsh <jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: