By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
Having just posted about the Higgs boson, other matters suddenly seem inconsequential. Still, such a convincing defeat of ACTA in the EU gives me cautious hope we'll be rid of it worldwide. Well, until we replace it with another acronym; after SOPA and PIPA we've still got plenty of letter combinations left!
Image from RT.
As I mentioned previously, I was concerned by SOPA, but was a little irritated that it was getting so much coverage in light of far more dangerous laws that had a greater chance of passing. This opinion piece from The Times via The Australian however made me think twice about the relevence of the SOPA debate.
Photo of "sopa" (heh) by Audrius Meskauskas, released under the same Creative Commons licence as my material here at Rubénerd. We're such commies!
Before we get into SOPA, some observations from the piece that should set the tone for our discussion here.
THERE was a period when I looked down the length of my not inconsiderable nose at Wikipedia.
As they say, people are wilfully ignorant of things when their jobs depend on them being wilfully ignorant of things.
The online encyclopaedia, put together by volunteers rather than experts, has an engaging way of allowing people to slip in wrong revelations [..]
He called it an encyclopedia! Most people using the tired "Wikipedia isn't accurate" chestnut don't. Still, what does any of this even have to do with SOPA?
[..] and aware that there are ingenious people out there behind keyboards deploying all possible arguments to stop the Feds, Wicked Rupert and what they call Big IP from interfering with what they see as their right to take content - music, movies, words - from anyone they can.
That isn't a strawman argument at all, we're not about protecting and keeping a level playing field for one of the few currently growing industries from rich lobbyists unfairly influencing politicians working for your sister industries in the US, we're just a bunch of good for nothing typists who are out to steal things.
David Aaronovitch, educate yourself before writing such fluff. What's Wicked Rupert and his team of phone hackers paying you for?
And that brings me to my real point.
Oh good, I knew in amongst all that waffle there was going to be a point somewhere. Mmm, waffles.
There are [going to be] two sets of rules in modern society: one for the online community, the other for everyone else.
I changed the tense, because that's what SOPA is trying to accomplish, yes. Isn't it amusing when journalists (or anyone for that matter) are right, but not in the way they intended?
Wikipedia has not used its capacity to "raise awareness" on behalf, say, of the protesters of Syria, but in defence of its own interests - even if you accept the broader threat that Wales perceives.
Another shameful distraction. Wikipedia would be directly affected by this legislation. Dragging the struggles of Syrians against their government into this is pretty low blow, even for someone writing for The Australian.
Read the full piece if you want, David goes to make more condescending claims and arguments backed up by nothing. Suffice to say, if this was supposed to be an impassioned defence of big media at the hands of super evil internet folk who are only out to steal stuff, I'm underwhelmed to say the least.
Still, I have to give kudos. He taught me just how much disinformation there is about this issue online, and how important these grassroots efforts really are. I'm willing to revise my previous stance that the blackout wouldn't accomplish anything politically; if enough people write about it in their papers (for or against) it'll keep the debate going. Whether or not that translates into action we'll have to wait and see.
Wikipedia has just gone dark, though initially I didn't notice because I use NoScript. Turns out they're using JavaScript to block it for various reasons and more.
Perosnally, I reckon they should have taken the angle that they're making a statement on the technological infeasiblity of blocking material, given the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it. Blocking data will only render people more creative in finding ways to get to it. And they will, every time.
I feel like I'm talking about The Great Firewall of Australia again!
Leaving aside the issue that SOPA is a smokescreen, I'll admit, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, SOPA is a serious concern for the future of the Internet in the United States with potential global repercussions, but I'm skeptical these blackouts will accomplish anything.
Legislators have been bought and paid for already, and the fact your Twitter avatar is black or your news aggregation site doesn't have any content on it won't sway them. That's not to say the media and politicians won't jump on this as a reason they're proud to dump SOPA while they enact PIPA, ICANNs compulsory verified registration process, and other legislation you'll be hearing about in coming months. Watch out for them.
In the meantime, instead of glorifying companies, websites and Twibbon-wearers for blacking their sites for a day, why not celebrate and support those who are actually helping to make a real difference on a daily basis. I tried to do that a few days ago, and was called out. Clearly, we have a lot of work ahead of us.
For these reasons, I'm not blacking out my entire site, but rather this one post.
I'm a month early, but I decided to get ahead on my NY resolutions and start transferring my domains from GoDaddy to Hover. So far, so good.
Screenshot by me on Flickr.
I was about to launch into a technical discussion of what transferring entails, however I'm half asleep and the super fabulous Dave Winer already wrote all you need to know. He's complimented me once and insulted me twice, which if you know the guy well enough is high praise ;).
His steps in a nutshell:
The only step where I differed was his assertion that GoDaddy's transfer confirmation email only includes a link to cancel the transfer, not approve it. This is no longer the case; they provide a link to the page where you approve or cancel transfers.
Every man and his dog is talking about this, so nothing I really could say would be anything new. What I will mention however is the difference between the number of emails I received from Hover, and from GoDaddy.
These were the messages from GoDaddy:
And from Hover:
I suppose the onus is on GoDaddy to confirm what could potentially be an elicit transfer, but still an interesting comparison. I'll be expecting far less spam from the folks at Hover.
More surprising though was GoDaddy's effort to keep my business till the very end... by doing the same sales tactics that drove so many of us away. From their second last email:
P.S. Visit GoDaddy.com and SAVE 15%* off your order of $50 or more. Just use source code [gibberish] when you check out to get your special savings. Start shopping now at GoDaddy.com or order by phone at (480) 505-8821.
And the footer of the final email:
SAVE 15% OFF* YOUR NEXT ORDER OF $40 OR MORE AT GODADDY.COM!
Use offer code [gibberish].
That was the same offer code as the $50 dollar deal above. It's as if they're bargaining with me.
.XXX IS HERE!
Block others from getting your domain name.
Register your .XXX NOW!
Yay, extortion!
CASHPARKING(R)!
Make money with your parked domain!
Let us show you how...
Yay, domain squatters!
I wonder if they expect to win much business back with those exact same tactics? Not that I'm suggesting anything, but the sign of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
In the meantime, I'm really enjoying Hover :).
