Wednesday’s internet-wide SOPA / PIPA protests, by many measures, were greatly successful. Google said that on that day alone, 4.5 million people signed their homepage petition against the legislation – and that number grew by millions on Thursday. The social media world generated a substantial amount of buzz for the protests as well: Twitter reported that over 2.4 million tweets about SOPA / PIPA were floating around the Twittersphere from 12 am to 4 pm Wednesday.
And Congressional support for the legislation has waned. The supporter/opponent chart available on tracking site SOPA Opera has literally inverted since before the protests. It currently stands at 26 supporters and 100 opponents (with both bodies combines)
On that note, another key member of the Senate has voiced concern about PIPA. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said:
While we must combat the on-line theft of intellectual property, current proposals in Congress raise serious legal, policy and operational concerns. Rather than prematurely bringing the Protect IP Act to the Senate floor, we should first study and resolve the serious issues with this legislation. Considering this bill without first doing so could be counterproductive to achieving the shared goal of enacting appropriate and additional tools to combat the theft of intellectual property. I encourage the Senate Majority to reconsider its decision to proceed to this bill
McConnell’s statement injects some partisanship into things and while it is definitely no “kill the bill” battle cry, it does suggest that public outrage against the legislation has forced even the top Republican Senator in the land to seriously rethink the measure.
A procedural vote on PIPA is scheduled for Tuesday and with any luck, it won’t hit the floor next week.
PIPA’s House of Representative cousin SOPA has lost much more support in the past couple of days than PIPA has, so we’ll have to wait and see if enough support remains to bring it back up later. SOPA was delayed earlier this week, but author Lamar Smith said that markup of the act will resume in February.
[Lead Image Via Facebook]