SOPA, PIPA, and Wikipedia May Have Been an Important Wake-up Call

The wailing and gnashing of teeth you heard yesterday was the audible and digital screams of marginal students who could not complete their homework by copying and pasting from Wikipedia.  To call attention to the opposition to the SOPA and PIPA legislation, Wikipedia and other sites either went black or had visible displays of opposition.  Beyond inconveniencing students, I wonder if we will look back on SOPA and PIPA as a marker in history in regards to the fight to keep the Internet free from censorship.

First for the disclaimers.  It is not the intention of this blog to express political views, and those views expressed are my own and do not represent Triumfant as a corporate entity.  My specific political persuasions are not important, but I am by no means a political animal or an activist.  I do fall squarely on the side of less government intervention.

First, SOPA and PIPA may have awakened some social and political awareness in the younger generations.  Jokes about Wikipedia aside, the fact that it went dark on a school night likely spiked awareness of the legislation like no other event could have managed.  PIPA was suddenly something to look up (but not on Wikipedia), instead of the cute sister of Kate Middleton.  Darkening the web sites that these generations rely so heavily on for their everyday life made some impression, and likely opened their eyes to a life where the Internet is not free.

Second, SOPA and PIPA woke up the general populace to the potential for censorship within our own country.  There were reports yesterday that several of the websites of key members of Congress were slowed to a crawl by the traffic to their sites.  The groundswell of opposition sent several senators and representatives backpedaling at a rate that can only politicians can.  Because of SOPA and PIPA, people now know that Congress is capable of trying to regulate that which they do not understand, and that which few if any of us want them to be regulating.

The World Wide Web is a obviously a two edged sword.  It has opened a world of information to our fingertips, created interesting new paths for communication, and created a new platform for commerce.  It also is a huge void full of cat videos, Lee Dewyze, and the Kardashians.  At its worse it is riddled with spam, malware, pornography of the vilest kind, and hate.   The dark side is a function of the unfiltered nature of the Internet, but censorship won’t make that go away – the bad will survive but the good will suffer.  We in the IT security business fight against the dark side of the Internet daily, but I dare say that most think it is a fair price to pay for the absence of censorship.

Lastly, SOPA and PIPA are a useful discussion point for the evolution of national and world economies to the realities of online commerce.  Debates about the demise of bricks and mortar businesses, digital rights management, and other related topics are not new.  But the businesses that don’t bother to evolve with the digital economy continue to look toward Washington to retain their old ways through bad legislation in the face of the natural forces of a changing market.  David Meerman Scott had a great blog post about this very idea on his WebInkNow blog yesterday.  Scott cites the music industry’s attempts to protect their long-standing business model as music moved into the digital age.  I also found this interesting article that contrasts Best Buy and Amazon.

It is my opinion that is not in the best interest of all of us to start down the path of censorship to protect the archaic business models of those who cannot evolve in an online world.  I think thanks to SOPA, PIPA, and Wikipedia, there are more of us who understand that principle, or were at least introduced to that principle, than there were before yesterday.  I don’t think we have seen the last of bills like these in the Senate, but I am confident that the citizens are better informed of the potential ramifications of such legislation and will once again take a stand.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a white paper to write now that Wikipedia is back online.