Bear Silber of Wailuku, Hawaii was sick. He had been to doctors, had lots of tests. But, he was not getting any better. He had no insurance. He was hiding away in his own home, in constant pain.
One day, Silber saw a picture and a comment on Reddit about a physical condition called “Cushing’s Syndrome”. He recognized the symptoms as matching his own. He took his newfound discovery to his doctor, and eventually to an endocrinologist. Thanks to the comment he saw posted on Reddit, Silber was able to get the treatment he needed and is now on the road to recovery.
Now, as a thank you to the community, Silber wants to write a book about his experience. He has launched a Kickstarter project to tell the world about how Reddit saved his life. His job barely pays his medical bills, so he is looking for some support in order to write his book. His goal is to raise $17,500 to help with his expenses while he writes the book, as well as some other professional support in getting the book to audiences.
“I’m making this video because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried losing weight on my own, I’ve tried doing everything possible – been on diets, been hospitalized. And I’ve always done what needed to be done at the time, then i’d always just gain the weight back.”
That’s the reason for making his YouTube plea, says Robert. On Thursday, a video called “Overweight guy asks for help” was posted to YouTube and in less than 24 hours has shot to the front page of reddit, appeared on BuzzFeed, and has prompted multiple Twitter hashtags.
The video is a self-filmed plea for help. The video’s subject, Robert, identifies himself as 22 (turning 23 today, March 2nd), and anywhere between 600 to 700+ pounds. He says he’s tried everything and is making this YouTube video as a last resort plea for help. Check it out below (warning: it’s rather heart-wrenching):
As you see, Robert says he wants the video to go viral – and he’s getting his wish. He shot up the front page of reddit on Thursday evening and now resides in the top spot on the Videos subreddit.
The top comment on that thread is about how one user is shocked by the lack of derogatory YouTube comments on Robert’s video. “Pretty much everybody on youtube is being nice to him. That is a first,” says TimeTravelMishap.
Although I’ve been able to find some pretty disheartening comments, people are giving him an almost surprising amount of support on YouTube. For instance, here’s one of the top voted comments:
Robert, I want to wish you a VERY Happy Birthday. Since I have no resources to help, I reposted this to help spread the word. I hope in doing so to help you find someone who has the resources/time/money/knowledge/experience to help you get out of the prison your body has held you captive to. God bless you my man, posting stuff like this leaves you wide open to criticism and hate, rise above! Please keep us posted, I will be following you from here on out!
It’s not impossible, YOU CAN DO THIS!
Multiple response videos have already been filmed and posted, all of them so far positive in their reaction to the video. Most of them feature someone giving their advice to Robert on how he can overcome his obesity.
Like I mentioned before, folks have also created a couple Twitter hashtags for Robert’s cause – #HelpRobert and #HelpThisGuy.
YouTube truly is an amazing platform for getting almost anything into the national spotlight. Let’s hope that in this case, it ends up bringing Robert the help he needs.
Reddit is truly a great place for web content, truth be told. With today being a Leap Day, Redditors are not disappointing with their unique way about things. We’ve seen numerous comical posts, and quite a few images / memes.
This post is an homage to some of the creations by Redditors. We’re not trying to compile a comprehensive Leap Day / Leap Year meme list, as that would take forever. Instead, we’re merely just highlighting some of the ones that made us chuckle.
Take a look for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comment area.
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While these aren’t all the images / memes dedicated to Leap Day / Leap Year, it is a great representation of what you will find around the web. Did we miss one or leave one out you were looking for? Let us know in the comments below.
If you’re any kind of experienced Internet user, you’re probably awfully familiar with the rage face memes that permeate across a large number of platforms. While Reddit deserves a large amount of the credit for the growing the popularity surrounding these images, they’ve grown beyond just the fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu subreddit.
These faces have pretty much crossed over the mainstream; at least in relation to the Internet mainstream. While your local news may be confused by them; hell, maybe even the national media, too; if you’re any kind of regular Internet user, there’s little doubt you’ve come across some kind of rage face, be it accidentally or from a shared link on your social media platform of choice. Much like the “I Can Haz” group, the rage face community has created a “build your own” rage face maker, which only further indicates their popularity.
But what would these faces look like in real life? Considering that most were inspired by real life facial expressions–Bruce Lee, anyone?–we have something of an idea, but now, thanks to the folks at Pistol Shrimps, there’s no mistaking what these kinds of rage faces would look like if you could pull them off in person:
Creepy or awesome? Or both?
As for the video’s popularity, since being upload on February 25, the Rage Comics In Real Life has acquired over 2.2 million views, with almost 40,000 likes. If that doesn’t clarify the popularity of this particular meme, I’m not sure anything will.
Reddit wants you to join them at PyCon 2012. What is PyCon? Read on to find out.
Reddit, as defined by them in a blog post, is “a bit unique.” I would use other adjectives to describe the Web site, but I can’t argue that unique is a good term for them as well. My definition, however, relates to the content of the site, whereas they mean their site is built on open source software.
When you look at it as a whole, Reddit claims that about 6.6 percent of their code comes from open source developers. That’s a significant percentage for a site as large and far reaching as Reddit.
Anyway, this is all to lead up to Reddit hosting a sprint at PyCon 2012, which is being held in Santa Clara, California this year. PyCon is an annual convention for the community of developers that use the open source Python development language. It’s also unique in that its organized by the community with corporate sponsors so the events are always accessible to the largest amount of developers possible.
As said, Reddit will be hosting a sprint during the convention. A sprint is like a hack-a-thon with a singular purpose. Since Reddit is hosting this sprint, you can bet it’s going to be about the Reddit API. The description on the sprint page says:
What’s the next big thing for reddit? Why don’t we have an official Android app? How can I script and simplify my common moderation tasks?
The answer to all these questions involves the reddit API! The best reddit-related projects are the ones that take advantage of our terrible API, and we want more of them – this sprint is about making that API better, and building new things on the existing API.
The sprints will be running from Monday, March 12 through Thursday March 15. There’s no real schedule to the event, but the Reddit team says that they will be available from around 10 a.m. to whenever dinner-time is for them.
If you want to participate in the Reddit sprint, you can sign up over at the PyCon sprints page.
The Reddit team will also be holding a pre-sprint intro session on Sunday evening. So be sure to attend that if you plan on joining the sprint to fix their API.
It is Tuesday night and you are looking to keep the party going. You have finished watching your Sailor Moon DVDs and are still hung over from playing the Meme drinking board game with your maintenance guy and three Kirby salesmen last night. Well, if you are stuck in 1996 or live in Portland, read on.
A new Pokemon drinking game popped on reddit Monday and is sure to get even the biggest geek socially lubricated and ready to battle. Almost every square on the white, yellow, and silver game board threatens to punish players by instructing them to drink up those Zimas or else! And if you do not like the fact that only 151 Pokemon are on the board the game creators tell players to go *%$@ themselves.
Upon further examination, I began to think that the creators are from North Korea considering the rigid and oppressive rule structures.
People who viewed this game have also commented that they do not believe they would survive the game considering almost every square requires the player to drink considerable quantities of liquor. While the game was intended for beer drinkers it is certain that other users will understand this factoid a little too late. But if you want to be a true Pokemon drinking champion, gamers like reddit user Batmanner posted say linked chat that you need to drink Sailor Jerry’s rum. What a puke fest!
For obvious reasons, playing this game with a buch of drunk friends around expensive electronic devices is moronic. To avoid a Guiness soaked iPad snafu, gamers have opted to laminate and mounted the picture of the board on foam core, which will cost you average Pikachu fan around $43.
The users of Reddit are more than just Internet warriors who fought bravely against SOPA and PIPA with the legendary Net blackout of January. They are also amateur legislators which they have proven by writing a law of their own.
The law is called “The Freedom of Internet Act” and it seeks to be what SOPA and PIPA aren’t – a level-headed approach to dealing with copyright infringement on the Internet. What makes this law creation unique is that it’s posted in an open Google docs file that anyone can edit it. It’s similar to what the OPEN Act has done by allowing users to propose changes to the bill.
The law has numerous articles that deal with various facets of Internet law and culture that the creators obviously feel must be considered in any proposed law. The first article addresses the most important concern right out of the gate – censorship. The law proposes that government can not pass any law that imposes censorship unless it meets strict criteria. That criteria is illegal content that is defined as thus:
“All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content.”
On the subject of culpability, the bill proposes that the only persons who should be held accountable for illegal content are those that upload it – not those that download such data.
On a different note, only if the content contains 40 percent of the original work can it be considered as copyright infringement.
ISPs can not be held accountable for the uploading of illegal content under their service. ISPs are also not allowed to monitor the data of their users. They also can not filter, restrict or distort any data being transferred over their network.
As a final protection for the user, they can not be held accountable if they can prove that they didn’t know the work they were uploading was illegal.
A short, but important article restricts ISPs or governments from being able to throttle users’ Internet as a form of punishment.
The content removal section is somewhat similar to what is already in the DMCA except for a few key exceptions. Notice for the removal of content must be sent within 30 days of the deletion of the content. This will allow the uploader of said content to appeal the accusation that his content is illegal.
On that note, ISPs must give notice to uploaders of infringing content that their content has been flagged for takedown.
The bill also includes a provision that deals with groups who claim to own content that they don’t. I’ll let the bill itself explain in all its glory:
Willful false claims of copyright infringement shall be treated and tried as equivalent to copyright infringement, and will only be diminishable on the sole condition of proof provided and accepted by a ruling court that supports the defendant’s reason for claiming infringement. No law or act shall diminish the liability wrongful claims of infringement shall carry as set forth by this act.
To perhaps stop the recent trend of people in foreign countries being tried in the U.S., the bill states that anybody accused of infringement must be tried in the country where they committed the crime.
In what would be a major change to current digital crime proceedings, there is a provision that says the courts can not use IP or MAC addresses as evidence to identify users as they are not reliable enough to determine identity.
One of the biggest wins for the average citizen, however, is that the bill would require the government to reimburse any damages caused during the seizure of their property if it’s used as evidence.
Article seven details the rights of the user. The biggest right is of course anonymity on the Internet. Everything a user does on their computer is considered private under the provisions of this bill with the only exception being if they are suspected of illegal acts.
It also protects the right of the user to use proxies for anonymous Internet use. The state would also not be allowed to make any assumptions on the actions of a user based solely upon their efforts to protect their privacy.
The liability of the user that has committed infringement can only be 110 percent of the calculated damage at market level.
There’s more to this proposed bill and it’s constantly changing. Be a part of the creation at the Google Docs page for it. You can also join the conversation at the FIA subreddit.
I highly doubt that a crowdsourced bill would ever be considered before Congress, but I’m willing to believe in anything.
Do you think Reddit’s bill is a better alternative to even the OPEN Act? Or is it just wishful thinking on the part of the Internet? Let us know in the comments.
Still trying to figure out what to do on your Friday night? You could go to the bars, but it’s crowded and you’re tired of paying eight bucks for a crappy beer. You could go to the movies – but then again that really cuts in on your beer drinking.
Here’s an idea: How about you gather some of your best friends, some good beer, and a die and sit down for a rousing round of the Meme Drinking Board Game.
The brainchild of reddit user kc_sharky, the game features many of the memes that reddit (and other sectors of the interwebs) love so dearly. And what’s even more impressive – the memes are used correctly. We start with Jimmy McMillan letting us know that whoever’s dice roll is too damn high gets to go first. We pass Socially Awkward Penguin, Scumbag Steve, High Expectations Asian Father, Good Guy Greg, and many many more. The winner is the first to reach Success Kid, who relishes in the fact that he won and everyone has to drink.
I think my favorite is Joseph Ducreux giving us an archaic rap about bros before hoes and then making all the girls drink. Not sure if the creator meant for it to work out like this, but both the Fry tiles and the Boromir Tile force players to go back to the “Wenches Imbibe” tile.
From the looks of the game, there’s going to be a lot of going back to the start, which means more drinking.
As far as your game pieces go – there’s no thimble or top hat here. You get to play with many an internet legend like Rick Astley, Business Cat, and even Ron Paul.
If you don’t want to take the time to print it out and play it as a real board game, you can play it online here.
Between this and Battleshots, everyone should have a pretty fun weekend.
Reddit has made an announcement concerning a topic that has hounded the online community for some time now – as of Sunday, they are adding a new overarching rule concerning sexually suggestive content featuring young girls. “Today we are adding another rule,” they said in a blog post. “No suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.”
This might make some of you stop and think, “Wait, reddit is just now making this rule?” And it’s true, this was never an explicit rule on the site. As they point out in their post, the site really has very few rules – no spamming, no messing with the actual inner-workings of the site. Reddit has always had a policy against anything illegal – but much of the content that this new ban addresses tiptoed the legality line. In order to avoid any future “legal quagmires,” reddit it making a sweeping move to ban any subreddit that “focus[es] on the sexualization of children.”
Of course, many of the subreddits that will fall under this umbrella will contain no nudity of underage girls. Reddit has always sought to eliminate “child porn” on a case by case basis (following NCMEC guidelines). But that’s where a lot of this content had toed the line. Many of the subreddits like /r/teens and the previously defunct /r/jailbait post images of underage girls who are clothed but might be making suggestive poses and whatnot. While many of the images were culled from places like Facebook and other public domains, for opponents of these types fo subreddits, it’s really all about the context. The children are being sexualized – even without nudity.
Here’s the whole post:
At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit; no spamming, no cheating, no personal info, nothing illegal, and no interfering the site’s functions. Today we are adding another rule: No suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.
In the past, we have always dealt with content that might be child pornography along strict legal lines. We follow legal guidelines and reporting procedures outlined by NCMEC. We have taken all reports of illegal content seriously, and when warranted we made reports directly to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who works directly with the FBI. When a situation is reported to us where a child might be abused or in danger, we make that report. Beyond these clear cut cases, there is a huge area of legally grey content, and our previous policy to deal with it on a case by case basis has become unsustainable. We have changed our policy because interpreting the vague and debated legal guidelines on a case by case basis has become a massive distraction and risks reddit being pulled in to legal quagmire.
As of today, we have banned all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children. Our goal is to be fair and consistent, so if you find a subreddit we may have missed, please message the admins. If you find specific content that meets this definition please message the moderators of the subreddit, and the admins.
We understand that this might make some of you worried about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content. We’re concerned about that too, and do not make this policy change lightly or without careful deliberation. We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal. However, child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat. We remain committed to protecting reddit as an open platform.
So as of this morning, subreddits like /r/jailbaitarchives, /r/bustybait /r/thenewjailbait, and /r/teens have all been banned. In scope, a subreddit like /r/jailbait archives had nearly 10,000 subscribers.
But right after it was banned, other subreddits popped up in its place. And that’s the nature of reddit – it’s huge. And t’s hard to police every little item in every little subreddit. So is this grand new policy change more of a PR move than an actual substantive shift? Subreddits like “SexyButNotPorn” and “AnythingGoesNSFW” are still up and running. And while subreddits like these make explicit rules for no jailbait or even nudity in some cases – it’ll be up to the moderators to police the content.
Most people can agree that any steps taken to combat child pornography are good steps. But some redditors worry about the slippery slope that comes with any sort of content ban. Plus, they are also wondering whether or not this new ban will cover /r/toddlersandtiaras. So far, that subreddit it still up and running.
Reddit is huge – that fact can not be understated. The site has turned into one of the largest hubs of information on the Web where people keep each other informed or share stories of life’s triumphs and trials.
Just how big did Reddit grow last year though? Reddit provided those numbers to The Daily Dot who made a handy infographic that charts the Web sites up and downs last year as it grew to the 35 million unique visitors a month giant that it is today.
It’s amazing to see how much Reddit grew last year despite its many setbacks. It’s a true Internet success story that is hardly ever replicated.
We here at WebProNews wish Reddit another great year of growth and hilarious memes.
I’ll start this out the way that it really should be started – with a warning to have your grain of salt ready. From the some-guy-is-bashing-his-former-company-on-reddit files, it appears that Zynga focuses the large majority of their attention on folks that you could say are borderline addicted to games like Farmville.
On Sunday, reddit user mercenary-games began an AmA session (Ask Me Anything) titled “IAmA Former FullTime Zynga Engineer – quit 6 months ago.” They alleged former employee says that they worked at Zynga for 8 months and eventually quit. They also make a point to say that this isn’t about a grudge –
No, this isn’t payback, or about a grudge. This is just word from someone who’s seen what this industry is capable of doing. Good, and Bad. No, I was not under contract, I was full time, offered stock (common shares, not that options bullcrap). I sympathized with contractors on how they were treated, most of the time. No, I was not some IT mangler. I worked for one of their “game studios”, basically the front lines where content made it to the masses.
The user offered proof in the form of a Zynga termination certification letter, available for your perusal here.
So there’s the evidence. Either this person is genuine of full of it – take your pick. If you choose genuine, then what he has to say about Zynga is pretty interesting.
When asked about some “creepy” stuff that the company does, our engineer talks about information gathering and how that is used to target a specific type of player:
Spying on players. Getting intimate gaming data, their habits, their networks, and how to effectively monetize given X.
Here’s another example;
Internal metrics researchers often give studio wide talks on what trends are going on. They’ve basically tracked down very popular players and also players who’ve spent an excess of 10k into the game. We often tweak our features to match and maximize for a particular gaming habit. We do this for massive populations of players. Players are not aware of this. To me, that’s a big brother like issue, someone is measuring and monitoring your behavior intimately, and you don’t know how that data is going to be used.
They go on to call the super users ($10,000+) Zynga Black or “Whales.” They apparently make up about 5% of Zynga players.
They are the “hardcore” crowd Zynga caters too. Every other player is treated as a spammer.
[Zynga] designs the game purely to fit the needs of the “whales”. Everyone else is treated as an “enabler”; spam messages, beg for tools, etc
Our former engineer elaborates on “creepy”:
The creepy factor at Z comes when they start designing for “behavior” instead of game design and fun. Behavior is what they are looking for. Behavior is what they measure, on a massive scale. It’s not about having fun to them, its about monetizing the fun, cloning games, buying indie studios, and suing the shit out of other companies. THAT is creepy.
On the issue of gameplay, they say that the actual gaming part of Zynga’s plan is secondary. Marketing is key:
Another issue was skewing gameplay for the sake of profit, example; I actually resorted to BAD MATH, to make the case for making a feature more fun. At the end of one sprint, a QA dude was complaining about the drop rate of a specific item being absurdly insane, and therefore UnFun. I looked at the code, and tweaked some values, gave it back to QA guy, and fun was restored. Product Manager overrides this, goes for unfun, yet more profitable version.
And later, “Zynga is a marketing company, not a game company.”
The treatment of contractors was also a topic of discussion:
Z treats them like second citizen employees, they almost have no feedback or say on their work schedule. I’ve seen people waiting to turn full time, but only spend more time as a contractor because of office politics. Worst of all; they are NOT welcome to company events, they are openly excluded from them. Yet, they want them to work twice as hard as regular full timers.
Have you swallowed your salt? Yes? Good. However, sure is interesting, right?
The EFF activist team – Rainey Reitman, Eva Galperin, Trevor Timm, and Parker Higgins – was also joined by two of their staff attorneys – Marcia Hofmann and Julie Samuels – in order to comment and answer on general legal questions regarding SOPA, PIPA, and any other legal issues (barring any cases that the EFF is involved in, for obvious reasons). A couple of the highlights thus far:
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The Q&A will continue throughout the day with the EFF people chiming in as they can, so follow the updates over on the Reddit thread.
Reddit co-counder Alexis Ohanion dropped by CNN’s newsroom today to discuss his website’s blackout in opposition to SOPA/PIPA.
In the discussion, Ohanion confirmed that all sides agree that piracy is a bad thing and should be stopped. But, the debate is how to go about doing that. Many feel that SOPA/PIPA is using a hatchet to solve a problem best-suited for a scalpel.
Ohanion points out that, had SOPA been enacted in the past, his own website would not exist. He argues that the next Facebook or Twitter would be stifled by this bill.
Much to the chagrin of, well, most of the people on the internet I assume, reddit has officially begun their blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA.
Reddit will be dark from 8 am EST to 8 pm EST, during which they advise users not to panic, drink a cup of coffee and grab your towel.
Visiting reddit.com sends you to a landing page where this message is displayed to redditors:
Dear reddit,
Today, for 12 hours, reddit.com goes dark to raise awareness of two bills in congress: H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” and S.968 “PROTECT IP”, which could radically change the landscape of the Internet. These bills provide overly broad mechanisms for enforcement of copyright which would restrict innovation and threaten the existence of websites with user-submitted content, such as reddit.
Please take today as a day of focus and action to learn about these destructive bills and do what you can to prevent them from becoming reality.
From there, users can follow links to call their congresspersons or sign a petition against the legislation as well as read more about the facts of SOPA / PIPA with a FAQ section.
Reddit also displays this video, a pretty popular one for blacked out sites today. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a good, succinct breakdown of the dangers of SOPA / PIPA.
Over the weekend, the Stop Online Piracy Act was dealt a major blow as the legislation was delayed until “outstanding concerns” have been addressed. SOPA will not move forward in the House as the official vote was been cancelled and the bill has been yanked from the floor. Representative and SOPA opponent Darrell Issa cheered this as a win for the internet community – but he warned that SOPA’s Senate cousin PIPA is still a major concern.
He’s right, and SOPA is still a concern as well. While it has been delayed, SOPA is not dead (just ask SOPA author Lamar Smith). It is entirely possible that SOPA could resurrect once a “consensus is reached.” SOPA must be destroyed while vulnerable.
And presumably, that’s why many sites will still participate in a scheduled blackout on Wednesday, January 18th to protest the legislation.
Smaller sites can get in on the protest as well. A site, sopastrike.com, has been set up by the Fight for the Future non-profit. It allows anyone with a website to join the strike. The site’s list of all registered blackout participants contains hundreds of small websites.
This site has been blocked in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) two bills which will allow the government to censor the internet. Find out more at americancensorship.org or the video below. This website will return at 8pm.
It will also show this video about SOPA and PIPA. If you haven’t already seen it, it’s a nice video that explains the dangers of the legislation:
Googler Pierre Far made a timely Google+ post Monday evening, coyly referencing the fact that sometimes webmasters feel the need to take their site offline for a day because of “server maintenance or as political protest.” He mentions this action as the most important one to take if you plan on having your site go dark for a day:
1. The most important point: Webmasters should return a 503 HTTP header for all the URLs participating in the blackout (parts of a site or the whole site). This helps in two ways:
a. It tells us it’s not the “real” content on the site and won’t be indexed.
b. Because of (a), even if we see the same content (e.g. the “site offline” message) on all the URLs, it won’t cause duplicate content issues.
2. Googlebot’s crawling rate will drop when it sees a spike in 503 headers. This is unavoidable but as long as the blackout is only a transient event, it shouldn’t cause any long-term problems and the crawl rate will recover fairly quickly to the pre-blackout rate. How fast depends on the site and it should be on the order of a few days.
If you don’t own a site and want to spread the word of the blackout via social media, you can use the hashtag #sopastrike or #stopsopa all day. BlackoutSopa.org also allows for you to change your Twitter pic to one of three images – either a smaller “Stop SOPA” banner under your pic, a total “STOP SOPA” image or a simple blackout.
There is still a day until the SOPA blackout, which means the window is closing for other big-name sites to join in. Having Reddit and Wikipedia down is going to be a huge deal, and it would only get bigger if other social sites joined the blackout party.
But it appears that not everybody is joining the party. In response to Radar correspondent Alex Howard asking him if he had the “cojones” to join Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia in the blackout, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo had this to say:
@dickc dick costolo@digiphile Not shutting down a service doesn’t equal not taking the proper stance on an issue. We’ve been very clear about our stance17 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales agrees that Twitter should not go dark in protest –
@jimmy_wales Jimmy Wales@dickc Can you confirm your support for Wikipedia’s protest? I agree with you that twitter should not go dark.14 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
He makes a distinction – that Twitter needs to be used to organize the protests. It’s a no-brainer that shutting down giant social media sites like Twitter and Facebook would severely hamper the ability to communicate about the protest. But if the purpose of the blackout is awareness, to send out a warning message, then nothing would be as jolting as seeing a site like Twitter go dark for an entire day.
Not all SOPA opponents feel that a blackout it a good way to tackle the unpopular legislation. As PandoDaily’s Paul Carr writes,
Arguing that a one-day closure reminds everyone of the importance of net freedom is like burning down one church to underscore the importance of the First Amendment for all of the others. Even if the shut-down did send an effective message, it’s still not Wikipedia’s call to make. If you ask the entire world for money to stay live, then you owe the entire world the courtesy of staying live, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
He also stresses that Wikipedia should stay neutral on policy issues, as they are dedicated to staying impartial in every other facet of the site. Jimmy Wales has responded to this concern as well:
So the English version of Wikipedia will be inaccessible for the purposes of article retrieval from 5am GMT to 5pm GMT on Wednesday. All visitors will see an open letter asking that they contact their representatives about SOPA/PIPA. Wales told the Telegraph:
“The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the internet, can affect everyone.”
Do you think that Wikipedia has a duty to stay neutral on the SOPA/PIPA issue? Or do they have a duty to take a stance because the legislation threatens the internet as a whole?Let us know in the comments.
Although SOPA was dealt a crushing blow this weekend, do you think that the demonstration is necessary to show people the real cost of internet censorship, so maybe legislation like SOPA won’t get this far in the future? Or do you think that blacking out a popular site for an entire day is too much, or even counterproductive? Do you think that it will work in swaying any SOPA supporters? Let us know in the comments.
Although SOPA has been pushed to the backburner for the time being, it’s not dead and we should remain vigilant in our opposition. Not only that, but SOPA is not the only legislation on the table that threatens the internet that we know and love. The Protect IP Act (PIPA) still sits in the Senate, and as a cousin to SOPA still has the ability to wreak havoc on the interwebs.
Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian has been a firm opponent of SOPA and PIPA since the beginning, and has taken to YouTube and social media outlets to protest what he calls internet-killing legislation.
Today, in a Google+ post, Ohanian explains that he’ll be writing sympathy cards to his Senators “mourning the death of the Internet because they supported Protect IP.”
Ohanian has also issued another video where he discusses the dangers of SOPA and PIPA:
He encourages us to check to see if our Senators support PIPA, and if they do, join in the letter writing. “Dear ______, I’m sorry for the loss of the free internet, which was killed by your uninformed and shortsighted support of the PIPA.” Something like that, I assume.
Of course, you can also write letters to your Senator even if they oppose PIPA, in order to hammer home the need for them to convince their colleagues to switch teams.
We were recently informed about Reddit’s plan to black their incredibly popular site out on January 18th as a method of protesting the anti-piracy acts that are currently in a holding pattern in the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Now, there are other sites joining Reddit’s show of anti-SOPA solidarity.
While folks are still waiting on Wikipedia to commit to the blackout, one way or another, some other sites of note have declared their intentions to join the blackout as well. Perhaps the most popular of these are the Cheezburger sites, which were made famous for their help in popularizing the LOLCats meme. The public was informed of this decision via Ben Huh’s Twitter:
@benhuh benhuhAll Cheezburger sites will also be instituting a blackout on January 18th to protest SOPA and PIPA. Now, go ask Wikipedia to do it.20 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
The Cheezburger network is not the only site openly supporting copyright infringement — if Lamar Smith were to tell it — as other site owners have expressed an interest in taking a stand against the piracy bills. For instance, Tucows is also joining in with the blackout, and while they may not be as popular as they once were, or, at least the act of downloading of free software, the company’s name still has recognition. From the Tucows blog:
The proposed SOPA (and equally odious “Protect IP Act“) legislation is fundamentally flawed in how it works and the damage it is likely to do to the Internet, which has been the greatest platform for innovation the world has ever seen. For that reason we will be joining the blackout organized by our friends at Reddit by blacking out the Tucows Software Download site on January 18th from 8am to 8pm EST (1300-0100 UTC).
While the games industry’s response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) has been relatively muted so far, Firefall developer Red 5 Studios has announced its intention to completely shut down its website, community site and Firefall beta on January 18 as a protest against the controversial legislation. It has also cancelled its booth at E3 to protest the continued support given to SOPA by the event’s organizers, the Electronic Software Association (ESA).
As the blackout day gets closer, expect the list of participating sites to continue growing.
One thing that can be said about the SOPA/PIPA bills is that it’s been effective at galvanizing factions of protesters of all types to come together against the them. Now it appears that the gamer legion is stepping into the fray.
Riot Games, makers of the real-time strategy game League of Legends, joined the concert of opposition to SOPA/PIPA yesterday in a statement posted on the League of Legends website. While SOPA has been detailed before with how it will affect other aspects of online activity, this is a notable endorsement of the anti-SOPA movement from the land of gamers.
In the post, Riot Games are clear to point out that, while they are opposed to online piracy, the current form of SOPA leaves much to be concerned about with how it “threatens any website that features user-generated content.” The author of the post, Ryze, goes on to list specific ways in which League of Legends will be impacted:
Kills streaming. If any single streamer plays copyrighted music (or alt tabs into a movie or other owned content) on their stream, there is a significant risk of the entire streaming service being taken down. In some cases, it could even result in criminal penalties for the streamer.
Threatens independent content creation. Services we all use to create and share League of Legends related content, such as YouTube, Reddit, DeviantArt, streaming websites such as Own3d and Twitch, and more would be at risk of shutting down or greatly restricting the scope of legitimate content allowed on their sites.
Attacks our community. Aspects of our service such as the official forums and potentially even in-game chat, could be taken down or have their features reduced based on user behavior.
Other harmful effects. SOPA/PIPA undermine established intellectual property legislation like the DMCA, raise serious constitutional free speech issues, and could even compromise the basic security infrastructure of the internet.
The post also includes a link to an Ask Me Almost Anything (AMAA) on Reddit from one of Riot Games Layers, wherein he is answered questions about Riot’s position yesterday. In the thread, their attorney says that while they’re not exactly included a full blackout of Riot Games on January 18th, they are pursuing further anti-SOPA actions that he described as “public-facing” although some of it will be “more calculated to maximize legislative impact against this bill.” Ultimately, he says, “We’re not just saying ‘we hate SOPA!’ and going away.”
Following Riot Games statement, a press release was issued by Change.org this morning in regard to the 100,000+ gamers and “concerned Internet users” who are calling on Electronic Arts to publicly oppose SOPA. So far, 112K people have added their name to the petition (their goal is to achieve 150,000 signatures). From the release:
“As much as I agree that copyright law needs to be enforced, this legislation represents a blatant trespass of corporate lobbyists upon small businesses, and I cannot support it, nor can I endorse anyone who does,”said Shashank Katsurirangan, a fan of EA’s sports games and Battlefield and Command & Conquer franchises. “As a passionate gamer, I have a lot of respect for independent game designers who share and advertise their games through file and video sharing sites like YouTube and RapidShare. Also, as an amateur musician, my primary outlet for sharing my work is through free media like YouTube. SOPA allows for consumers to be denied access to these sites upon detection of any copyright infringing material, inflicting severe collateral damage upon independent artists and game designers whose only publicity comes from free media sites.”
EA has not issued a statement concerning the petition at this time. It remains to be seen if petitions like these can convince some of the major Internet players (such as the Googles and the Facebooks) to come off of the sidelines and take a more active role in opposing SOPA.
Speaking yesterday morning at the Qualcomm CES keynote, Gary Shapiro blasted SOPA and its backers and supporters for their efforts to stifle both free speech and innovation. Shapiro is president of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organization responsible for CES.
Shapiro pulled no punches in his criticism of the act and its backers. He called SOPA a “threat to innovation,” that was supported primarily by “politicians who are proudly unfamiliar with how the internet works, but who are well familiar with favors from well-heeled copyright extremists.” These extremists, he says, “seek to inhibit free thought and speech.” Conversely, Shapiro praised the OPEN act (PDF), which has been proposed as an alternative to SOPA/PIPA.
This is not the first time that Shapiro has been in the news for his opposition to SOPA. Just last week he offered similarly sharp criticism of the bill in an interview with VentureBeat. He said that SOPA is a distraction from what Congress should really be working on. He lamented that “in Washington, the urgent replaces the important,” and noted that opponents of SOPA “are being outspent 10 to 1 by the copyright extremists.” He went on to say that “[t]here are two types of members of Congress: those who understand the internet and those who will vote for SOPA because they have made commitments to the copyright extremists.”
Shapiro’s comments at CES came on the same day as an announcement by Reddit that they would be blacking out the site for 12 hours on Wednesday, January 18th to show opposition to the SOPA. The popular link sharing site surpassed 2 billion pageviews in the month of December alone.
Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis “kn0thing” Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.
We’re as addicted to reddit as the rest of you. Many of you stand with us against PIPA/SOPA, but we know support for a blackout isn’t unanimous. We’re not taking this action lightly. We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it. Blacking out reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community.
We reported earlier on Ohanian’s testimony. He will be joined by:
Stewart Baker Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Brad Burnham: Partner, Union Square Ventures
Daniel Kaminsky: Security Researcher and Fortune 500 Advisor
Mr. Michael Macleod-Ball: Chief of Staff/First Amendment Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, has been asked to speak at the upcoming hearing concerning SOPA and PIPA, everybody’s favorite Internet acronyms; for the moment, anyway. Apparently, the U.S. House Oversight & Government Reform Committee wants to hear from the “other side,” and so, they’ve invited a number of Internet celebrities to speak for or against the piracy acts.
Considering Reddit’s position — just ask GoDaddy — it’s pretty easy to figure out what side Ohanian will be when the hearing starts. Over at Ohanian’s Google+ account, he provides the details of his upcoming appearance, courtesy of the government’s press release, including the witnesses in attendance:
“House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced that the Full Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community. In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers access the Internet, the hearing will also explore federal government strategies to protect American intellectual property without adversely affecting economic growth. The Committee will hear testimony from top cyber-security experts and technology job creators.”
“An open Internet is crucial to American job creation, government operations, and the daily routines of Americans from all walks of life,” said Issa. “The public deserves a full discussion about the consequences of changing the way Americans access information and communicate on the Internet today.”
On January 18h, witnesses from the Internet industry will be better-represented:
Witnesses
Stewart Baker Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Brad Burnham: Partner, Union Square Ventures
Daniel Kaminsky: Security Researcher and Fortune 500 Advisor
Mr. Michael Macleod-Ball: Chief of Staff/First Amendment Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union
Dr. Leonard Napolitano: Director, Center for Computer Sciences & Information Technology Sandia National Laboratories
Alexis Ohanian Co-Founder, Reddit.com, and Web Entrepreneur
From Ohanian’s perspective, this latest hearing is the House’s attempt to “bring in the nerds,” most, if not all, of which oppose the acts in their current form. The question is, much like the dissenting reactions from the previous SOPA hearing, will the opposition fall on deaf ears, while being treated like they only want to protect intellectual property pirates, or will Lamar Smith and his posse’ continue to ignore the counterpoints being made?
Considering how the prospective amendments designed to clean SOPA up were tossed out like yesterday’s garbage during the previous hearing, I know where I’m leaning.
