

Ask HN: Was The Day We Fight Back Really a Failure? - obeone

Several popular HN articles are painting 2&#x2F;11&#x27;s Fight Back as a &quot;failure&quot;.  However, between yesterday and today there were about 90k telephone calls and 180k emails to our states&#x27; representatives.<p>This seems like a lot to me.<p>Stop SOPA was labeled a &quot;success&quot; at 7 million emails, and Fight Back was a failure at 180k--<p>The question is this: Does anyone here know the lower limit threshold response necessary to achieve legislative &quot;success&quot;?  Is there no effect on the legislative process with 90k phone calls?
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winslow
I called and emailed my representatives (which included Diane Feinstein whom
was swamped with calls). When I looked at the numbers this morning, I felt
defeated. It saddened me to see below 100k phone calls. However, I don't think
it was a "failure" nor do I think it was a victory. I think this is a good
step forward for our voice on this issue. Hopefully our representatives get
our message and in return support reigning in the NSA etc.

To be honest, I feel like we lost a while ago and my voice just echos with no
response. I don't see social security being there when I retire (I'm 24), I
don't see the NSA stopping its surveillance anytime soon, I don't see
Americans coming together and dropping this bullshit banter between Left vs.
Right and who is wrong.

I think the only way to cleanup this mess would be a revolution (who knows how
much that would change). The US Gov't has made it clear that the citizens are
now potential enemies and with the agenda they are currently pushing they are
creating more enemies here in the states. I am ashamed of my government.

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basdevries
One should measure success by the numbers but by the impact.

In my opinion, and that of a whole lot of other people, The Day We Fight Back
didn't have the effect a lot of us hoped for. It is up for debate whether this
means it 'failed' but it certainly didn't 'succeed'.

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gamblor956
My impression of the Day We Fight Back was that it was the day a bunch of tech
sites put a small banner at the top of their page. And that was apparently it.

A single donation to a PAC would have accomplished more than all 90,000 of
those phone calls and all 180,000 of those emails combined.

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LearnAndBurn
This may be a bit too anecdotal, but I didn't hear about this campaign until a
week before it happened. In my opinion, the organizers failed to consider
awareness propagation time and as a result TDWFB felt rushed, sloppy, and
silly. According to wiki the organizers announced this protest on January 10,
2014 for the day of February 11, 2014. We even saw posts on HN "wishing to add
more features" to the Github projects that helped websites easily show their
support.

I realize I'm sounding quite negative (sorry), but really this entire campaign
should have given itself a bit more runway for prep and awareness. Just my two
cents.

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pearjuice
It was a pathetic attempt. Fighting back against mass surveillance and social
pressure is not done by loading third party Javascript and re-tweeting some
against-the-system quotes. Emailing your representative? That will show them!

Next time, you go down the street. No sissy parade shit. Full-house attacks on
anything against your ideals and rights. But guess what? Nobody will. Or at
least not the numbers for it to have effect. Why, you ask? You have been
weakened systematically. Uproar is bad. Instead, have some Javascript banner.

Pathetic indeed.

