

Hacker News Blacking Out Logo - tluthra
http://news.ycombinator.com/?sopa

======
muppetman
Thank god there was a story about this. I'd never have realised. </sarcasm>

Really - Does the front page need to be filled with this stuff? _We're_ aware
of it already. Is it really _that_ exciting?

~~~
danssig
Well, we are talking about potentially the end of the internet.

~~~
leejw00t354
Even though it could mean the end of what we now call the internet I have to
agree that having the front page covered with SOPA blackout pages is silly.
People on HN are already aware of the risks this legislation brings. It's more
important we make people who use the internet regularly but don't know much
about the legislation aware of what's going on and what the problems are with
it. These top news stories are likely news to only about 0.1% of HN.

~~~
sterling312
If the correlation between SOPA awareness and HN user is indeed 99.9%, we need
to find a website that has close to 0%. _cough_ MySpace _cough_ Could this
bring web attention back to the decaying social network? Stay tuned.

~~~
sterling312
I guess I really should stress my sarcasm more lol

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screwt
I'm not from the US. Is there anything I can do to help oppose SOPA/PIPA?

So far I've assumed I'm not eligible to call US senators/ congressmen, or sign
the whitehouse.gov petition. Am I wrong about this? Is there anything else I
can do instead?

All the blackout messages I've seen today don't appear to have much info for
the rest of the English-speaking world about what we can do to help.

~~~
Sandman
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/114010/how-can-
peopl...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/114010/how-can-people-
outside-the-us-help-with-sopa)

------
pshc
Ought to black out all the headlines. Stand at the same level as Wikipedia and
co. even if it's trivial to bypass.

~~~
dredmorbius
I consider this a "black armband".

In the protest movement, there are those who self-immolate, suicide, or hunger
strike. There are also those who rally in the streets, fly flags, wear
ribbons, or armbands.

What matters is solidarity and communicating the message.

Given that I've heard discussion of SOPA/PIPA on NPR, BBC, and The New York
Times already, notice has been made.

SOPA leads Google News, and I see 3800+ articles on it now. I expect more to
follow. Google Trends and the news timeline are also informative:
<http://bit.ly/zRA1w4> (original link is _far_ too long).

~~~
greml1n
> I consider this a "black armband".

So HN is to SOPA as the SUV driver with the "Support Our Troops" magnet was to
the occupation of Afghanistan/Iraq?

~~~
dredmorbius
If it's the "Support our Troops ... end this war" variant.

And the SUV is a Prius. Or bicycle.

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mukyu
Is there anything to actually have a discussion about relating to this? Seems
too navel gazing to me.

~~~
CharlieA
Even though probably everyone who frequents HN is already aware of SOPA/PIPA,
I think it's more a show of solidarity with others participating (Wiki/Google)
and a "lead by example" case rather than the idea that it might make a huge
difference in the same way that some of these bigger players will.

~~~
polemic
Is there a link to more info somewhere? Maybe a small link on the right of the
top header? At the moment it seems a bit 'in' to just blackout without an
obvious link to more info.

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insickness
Hacker News should go dark for the day. Site participation in the blackout is
not just to inform users but to garner news media coverage of SOPA. Thousands
of conscientious sites around the net are participating but Hacker News isn't.

------
tluthra
The tab title also accidently got <span>'d

~~~
pg
Sorry, fixed.

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wnoveno
I'm not from the US and I thought someone important died again.

~~~
pknerd
Yes, freedom gonna die soon.

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antrover
OooooOooo... A black background with grey text! That's some pretty radical
protesting right there. Should've turned off HN for 12 hours instead.

------
zerostar07
It's a good thing that twitter is not blocked, it helps spread the news about
the protest. They could add at least a small notice though. Blacking out
hacker news is mostly symbolic preaching to the choir.

------
drewblaisdell
When is Facebook going to participate? We already have Google and Wikipedia,
it seems like Twitter and Facebook would also be all over this.

~~~
mukyu
Twitter said they aren't going to do it. [1]

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/sopa-
twitt...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/sopa-twitter-will-
not-join-wikipedia-reddit-in-blackout/2012/01/17/gIQAvDta5P_story.html)

~~~
math_is_life
I saw the argument yesterday that was made and it was good enough to convince
me that Twitter and Facebook should stay up. They are important communication
tools and they will be needed today when people are going to those sites so
they can discuss this stuff. But, they could do like Google and at least
acknowledge it. I am hoping that they will still do that at some point today
though because in response to a tweet, Dick Costolo said, "watch this space."
Not sure what he means, but hopefully it means Twitter will acknowledge it.

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libraryatnight
I like this color scheme lol, but in all seriousness - I'm glad to see HN
participating.

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guitate
Maybe shuting down a couple hours is better than this, but the fact is people
notice it

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simplycomplex
Is there any plans for Bing to do the same, like Google did to protest against
SOPA?

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mapster
Tech Crunch like HN is black, but not blacked out. Are these different
messages?

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detay
Any response to SOPA is better than none.

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evandena
ooo racey

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wetblanket
This, along with the normal hell-banning of innocent user accounts.

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scoofy
Whoa... Meta

~~~
dredmorbius
Yeah, but do you know Kung Fu? </matrix>

