Yesterday Internet users across the United States rushed to their keyboards, sat up straight, and starred menacingly into their computer screens while silently saying in their heads: “Take that, Internet censorship!” Then they hit ENTER nearly 8 million times on petitions to help stop SOPA/PIPA. Internet giants Reddit, Wikipedia and Craigslist joined in the protests by going dark for an entire day. The bill caught the attention of mainstream media sources, even dominating the New York Times’ homepage. Nineteen senators now oppose PIPA, including seven who formerly co-sponsored the bill. OpenCongress’s Protect IP Act Senate whip count currently shows 33 senators supporting PIPA, and 39 opposing it.
Even though Google did not blackout its site, 7 million Internet users signed the petition.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s petition logged 225,000 signatures on its joint petition with Reddit and Craigslist. Protestors made over 40,000 calls to Capitol Hill.
MoveOn.org participated in the Internet blackout day and also collected 310,000 signatures for its SOPA/PIPA petition. It raised Internet awareness with a few graphics, too, including “None Of The Links On Our Site Are Working Today”, which was viewed more than 23,000 times.
But SOPA/PIPA isn’t dead yet. Politico reports that Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a cosponsor of the bill, and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz), who is leaning toward “no,” are in discussions to exempt search-result blocking from PIPA. For now, it’s still unclear whether the bill will pass. It is scheduled for a procedural vote on Tuesday.
