
Why Google And Facebook Need To Go Dark To Protest SOPA - gluejar
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/11/why-google-and-facebook-need-to-go-dark-to-protest-sopa/
======
jonnathanson
Google might be well served by some sort of partial blackout on its home page,
but Facebook would need to get more creative -- and, dare I say it, more
social.

A blackout of any kind on Facebook would create a minor to major annoyance for
an audience that we can presume is largely ignorant to apathetic about SOPA.
If, instead, Facebook released profile widget of some sort -- say, a
standardized black box as one's default profile image, with a solidarity
message or link -- they'd probably see better uptake. People would be curious
about why their friends were blacking out their profile pictures, and they'd
click to find out more. Even if for no other reason than to see what the fuss
was about, or to jump on a trendy bandwagon. In this way, Facebook would be
piquing interest, rather than creating confusion.

Anecdotally, I've seen friends use this tactic to great effect when promoting
anything from parties, to launches, to causes. It works because it spreads
easily, it's hard not to notice, and it's less easily ignored or tuned out
than generic site-wide messaging. And, as the folks at Facebook know all too
well, we tend to notice what our friends are doing more readily than we notice
what disembodied corporate messages are saying.

~~~
chc
I'm a lot confused. Are you saying that people _wouldn't notice_ if you
replaced the whole Facebook site with a protest message, but if you offer a
protest widget to "an audience that we can presume is largely ignorant to
apathetic about SOPA", it will spread like wildfire? That doesn't make any
sense to me.

~~~
jonnathanson
Pretty much what Wilduck said. People would absolutely notice a service
blackout, or a blanket reskinning of the entire site. But they wouldn't
necessarily care. Additionally, they'd first be annoyed about it before
stopping to read about why it was happening -- if they even decided to read
about it at all. I suspect Facebook would generate as much resentment and/or
confusion over the blackout as it would interest in the cause.

Conversely, a more "organic" message uptake strategy would be to seed the
profile badges or pictures to highly influential users with big, engaged
followings. These people would influence others within their networks, who
would in turn influence their own friends. The opt-in nature of the protest
would not engender any resentment toward Facebook, and it might be received
more readily by the users -- each of whom could also act as an evangelist for
the cause if they learned about it and engaged with it.

Even having influential Facebook employees (Zuckerberg, et al.) replace their
profile pics with protest badges would work wonders and get lots of pickup.

However you want to slice it, my point is that it's better to _use_ Facebook
to spread the word than to spite Facebook to spread the word.

~~~
danssig
>I suspect Facebook would generate as much resentment and/or confusion over
the blackout as it would interest in the cause.

So what? What are people going to do, another "mass exodus"? People always get
mad at the person who inconveniences them first (in this case, facebook) and
then when they see the first one won't move then they get mad at the person
who caused that (in this case, SOPA).

Facebook, G+, everyone should shut completely off with a big scary warning
that SOPA means the end of the internet. If that many people have to go a
whole day without cat photos you're going to see a shit storm the likes of
which the US hasn't seen in a very long time.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"So what? What are people going to do, another "mass exodus"?"_

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that pissing people off
and/or confusing them is putting them into a mindset in which they're not
going to be very receptive to the message. The goal should be to get users to
care about the SOPA issue on their own volition -- not to beat them over the
head with it, especially when it's likely than >90% of them have no idea what
it is to begin with.

My point isn't that pissing off the users would be dangerous for Facebook's
longterm health. Rather, it's that pissing off the users is unnecessary -- and
probably counterproductive -- in the mission to get them to care about SOPA.

 _"People always get mad at the person who inconveniences them first (in this
case, facebook) and then when they see the first one won't move then they get
mad at the person who caused that (in this case, SOPA)."_

It's a big leap from A to B here, and I'm not so sure your average user will
make it. More likely than not, a typical FB user will get mad at FB for
inconveniencing him, but will stop investigating at that point. He'll just be
mad at FB for a service disruption, and he won't really care about why it's
happening. He will be less likely to care about SOPA, because he's pissed at
the company trying to get him to care about it.

If Facebook were aiming to maximize receipt _and_ uptake of the anti-SOPA
message, then as the saying goes, they'd catch more flies with honey than with
shit. Badgering your users into reading about a political stance is bound to
be less effective than encouraging them to read about it. Second -- and even
more important -- a service blackout does not allow users to do anything about
SOPA, even if they cared. All that most of them will do is sit there and fume
while waiting for service to be restored (it's a big stretch to think that the
typical user will actually read through literature on the subject and then
file or sign petitions, or write congressmen, or what have you). A grassroots
strategy, on the other hand, allows them to spread the word.

It's not a perfect analogy, but consider the case of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA). Back in the old days, PETA activists used to show
up outside of shopping boutiques and throw cans of red paint onto consumers
wearing fur or leather goods. It got attention, and it certainly pissed people
off. But it backfired: people got pissed off _at PETA_. Nobody made the
logical leap from "I'm pissed at these hippies who just threw paint on my
$3,000 coat" to "Well, they have a point; I guess I'm really pissed off at the
fur trade." Eventually, PETA wised up to the folly of this tactic, and they
adopted a new one: getting high-profile actresses to pose nude in tasteful,
but provocative print ads. Needless to say, this concept received more
attention, and the attention it received was a lot more positive.

~~~
danssig
>The goal should be to get users to care about the SOPA issue on their own
volition -

Never going to happen. How much money has been spent for how long to get
people to care about the millions of things they should care about and they
just don't.

What makes people care about something is not being able to do what they want
to do. If something gets in the way they rage at that thing first. Then when
it won't move they rage at what ever put it there. The rage keeps moving
further up the tree of effects until something happens.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"Never going to happen. How much money has been spent for how long to get
people to care about the millions of things they should care about and they
just don't."_

Are you saying, categorically, that it's impossible to get people to care
about things? With all due respect, I'm a bit confused by this statement. I
agree with you that most people tend to be apathetic, and that it's hard to
reach them. But I can name dozens, possibly hundreds, of examples of
successful cause-based campaigns that relied on generating positive solidarity
with, or good will toward the campaigner; I can name precisely zero successful
campaigns that relied on deliberately pissing people off at the campaigner.

 _"The rage keeps moving further up the tree of effects until something
happens."_

I just don't see that happening. People don't connect dots as readily as you
might assume. Again, see my PETA example. It's not a perfect analogy -- but it
gives an indication of how attempts to generate and redirect rage usually just
result in the generation of rage, without the redirection.

~~~
danssig
>Are you saying, categorically, that it's impossible to get people to care
about things?

For most people, yes. You're never going to get to them your way because
they're not interested in your message. As soon as they detect that you're
talking about something that has nothing to do with their goals they'll drop
you and move on.

That's why the "pissing people off" method works; because they can't move on.
As for examples, I can think of maybe one or two examples where some kind of
touchy-feely campaign has made more than an obscure amount of people care, but
my success in business often relies on the latter method and I can tell you
that it not only works, in a business setting it is the only thing that will.

------
ryandvm
Going dark for a day is a pretty scary proposition for a company whose
continued success is largely based on habitual usage.

As a practical matter, Google search is not really that much better than Bing.
Making 600 million people use your competitor's equally capable product for a
day would be pure insanity. Especially for such speculative gain.

I can't believe people think Google is dumb enough to try a blackout.

~~~
jrgifford
Look at it this way. Either they do a blackout and (probably) save their
entire company, or don't and lose everything.

While I'm not a businessman, I'd rather take the chance of making everyone use
Bing/DuckDuckGo/Yahoo/Whatever for a day rather than risk losing my entire
companies main product(s).

~~~
jeiting
False dichotomy. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>

~~~
jrgifford
That is true, I over simplified things. However, the point remains.

------
untog
It would be truly amazing to see this. Reddit going dark is fantastic, but to
an extent it's "preaching to the choir"- Reddit is already the centre of SOPA
activism.

Google, Facebook or Twitter going dark would be a huge statement. Is there a
movement for other sites to go dark on Jan 18th as well? My startup going dark
by itself wouldn't have a huge impact, but if it was part of a national day of
activism it could be great.

~~~
stfu
I believe Facebook is the least one willing to stand up for civil rights - as
long as not about some 3rd world dictatorship. With their ongoing questionable
practice in regards to privacy they are certainly going to duck and cover as
soon as something controversial comes up. Google and especially Twitter are
from my view substantially more supportive to causes like these.

~~~
nextparadigms
That's too bad, because under a law like SOPA, the social sites will be
affected _first_.

------
krschultz
I don't think Google & Facebook need to go dark to achieve this. Going dark is
not something either company would do - the cost is enormous and it would draw
real ire from politicians. But Google simply changing it's logo for a day
would be enough to magnify the publicity around this issue. That doesn't
impact their users or their bottom line, but it gets the job done.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Going dark is not something either company would do

Until someone decides that they're hosting infringing content, of course.

~~~
kevinh
I find it exceedingly hard to believe that Google would be brought down as a
repercussion of Google. It's very unlikely that any widespread, powerful
websites (like Google or Facebook) would be taken down, because removing them
from the ecosystem would prompt an enormous user reaction. Say what you will
about the intelligence of those involved with SOPA, they know about how much
they can rock the boat.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> as a repercussion of Google. I think you meant SOPA.

> It's very unlikely that any widespread, powerful websites (like Google or
> Facebook) would be taken down, because removing them from the ecosystem
> would prompt an enormous user reaction.

Probably not. I haven't read SOPA in detail, so I don't know what the
procedure is - who gets to decide whether to shut the site down or not? What
if the clerk working that particular desk is an 80 year old luddite and has no
idea what a google is, but knows for sure it shouldn't be stealing all those
movies or whatever?

And what happens to Facebook if I suddenly start uploading video clips from
unreleased movies? The obvious answer is that Facebook shuts down my account,
but what if some RIAA goon sees it before that happens and pulls the SOPA
lever, or some congressman? If they can't use SOPA to shut down an infringing
website, how could they have justified using all that cash to lobby for it?

~~~
billybob
Facebook won't get shut down because it's too big, well-known, and rich.

It's all the would-be competitors who will get shut down, because who cares
about some no-name "pirate" site? Suddenly, we'll stop seeing new sites that
allow user content and the big players will be effectively entrenched by law.

------
cookiecaper
I posted this elsewhere, but I think it got buried. IMO it is worth reposting
here:

Assuming this spreads, I believe a potential ramification of major sites
blacking out would be new laws that would attempt to make such black outs
illegal.

It could be seen as equivalent to strikes in essential service industries like
transportation. Such strikes are semi-regulated and governments can and have
ordered strikers back on the job to maintain public order. I see this
possibility as a potentially major unintended consequence of putting Facebook
"on strike".

~~~
drivingmenuts
I really don't see how a law like that would ever get past the Supreme Court,
seeing as how it's a major restriction of 1st Amendment rights.

It would also be a major signal to every web app out there that this is the
wrong country to be in.

edit: wrong institution.

~~~
nitrogen
By the time something reaches the Supreme Court, years of damage have been
done.

------
tlogan
No - Google and Facebook will not go dark and SOPA will pass.

The big internet companies such as Google and Facebook etc. will probably get
some exception from SOPA (like they will not liable if they allow easy
censoring tool for big production companies) and because of that they will be
quiet.

Look, paying few million to lobbyists to exempt you from some legalization is
much more efficient - and in parallel you can kill competition like
duckduckgo.com

------
HaloZero
I still believe Wikipedia going black would also make a decent statement
without causing giant economic losses. They've done it before in Italy, and it
worked there.

------
dandrews
Utilities cannot "go dark". The power company couldn't go dark to make a
political point. The water and gas companies couldn't either.

Google has acquired (for better or worse) utility status. Interrupting service
to make a political point would do unbelievable damage to Google itself.

Better to just outspend Hollywood, if Google has the will to defeat SOPA.

~~~
Osiris
In what way? I don't see how the two equate. Utilities are natural monopolies
with strict regulations. They can't shut down because you couldn't just buy
your power from someone else. That's not the case at all for Google.

Google has every right to suspend offering their service at anytime. The only
way the government could force them to stay open would be to buy a controlling
interest in the company like they did with the banks.

~~~
dandrews
You are correct: my use of the word "utility" was not very rigorous.
Nevertheless a lot of people depend on Google, and if Google took themselves
down capriciously it would demonstrate that they can't be counted on.

Of course they have every right to go black, but I can't help but feel they'd
suffer the consequence in a big way.

Not even Google can buy a reputation back.

------
tsieling
My money is on the side that says they're too far in bed with politics to
chance it.

~~~
jstrom
This strikes me as a far more important consideration than the loss of revenue
or potential harm being discussed in the other topics.

Blacking out Google's front page will reach 38 Million (or 12% of the
population) [1]. Compare that to the effort involved in more traditional
political advertising--The largest TV audience is around 27 Million [2] (And
drops by 50% to the most popular non-football program). There's also the
question of how invasive the ads are. I'd bet a notice on the Google homepage
getting in your way every time you do a search will have far more impact than
newspaper ad that you skip over once you realize it isn't an article.

We know there's a level of discomfort concerning business's influence on
politics. There was fallout over the supreme court decision in _Citizens
United v. FEC_ \--the issue is being brought up again [3].

Google has a lot of power over the internet and a lot of knowledge of what
people do on-line. Most of us can overlook that since we don't see a personal
impact (except every few months a site vanishes from Google's results and the
owner's blog post shows up on HN). Though they are getting attention from
congressional inquiries and lawyers seeking to kill opposing sites.

Consider the fallout if Google went ahead. You have people uneasy with how
businesses can effect politics from just the abstract idea of donations being
shown a very concrete example. You have politicians with the power to regulate
Google being shown that Google can be a danger to them.

I don't see how they could risk losing their perceived neutrality and
harmlessness.

[1] Using the statistics from <http://google.com.hypestat.com/> for a rough
estimate: 129M unique visitors daily, 30% from the United States, that's 38.7M
or 12% of the population.

[2] <http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/television.html>

[3]
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020436810457713...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204368104577139100369896494.html)

------
methodin
Google would have a lot more to lose than Facebook. Most of the posts on
Facebook are not necessarily links etc... and even if the links were banned it
wouldn't have that much of an effect on Facebook itself, other than people
getting PO'd that the link they click on are decommissioned. Most people tend
to be smart enough to realize this is not Facebook's fault.

Google on the other hand is almost exclusively driven by other content so
having a sudden lack thereof would be far more detrimental.

Therefor I would be surely surprised if Facebook did something like this while
I could every well see something happening on Google's side - although
offsetting the money being poured in support of SOPA to counteract it would
also go a long way to help.

~~~
xxbondsxx
I've heard two interpretations of the "going dark" idea; one is to completely
shut off the main functionality of the site, and the other is to simply
_change the background color_ of the main landing page and have a banner about
SOPA. Something that's eye-grabbing / shocking and encourages users to act
would be immensely effective, and doesn't necessitate turning off the site.

------
calbear81
I've been following the SOPA issue on the periphery and I agree there needs to
be more awareness and publicity around it but I don't find a blackout to be
the most effective way of defeating this legislation. Reddit is fine because
they don't have that much money to lose by going dark for a day but we know
clearly that money has a big influence on the outcome of elections and
political races.

Why not take the revenue that would have been forfeited to a single day
blackout which would probably be about $100+ million (between Google,
Facebook, and let's say 2 other sites) and funnel it towards a Super-PAC that
will use it instead to fund opposition ads during election time against those
who supported the legislation.

What about finding a way to influence the primary supporters of SOPA, content
creators and media companies? These companies will rely on the very tech
companies they may damage with SOPA in the future to be the primary channels
for distribution (YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, etc.), which means that there's
leverage that can be applied.

Just my two cents.

~~~
27182818284
>much money to lose by going dark for a day

Google doesn't need to blackout and stop service, they just could change their
homepage's logo to have a black censored bar across it and that is all it
would take.

------
thwest
Why go completely dark? Partially put black censor bars over most of the
search results. Throw in a prominent banner to a page explaining SOPA and a
button to remove the censorship. Then there is less chance of users assuming
some technical problem, and a greater chance for education.

------
teja1990
One thing Google can do instead of a total blackout is a black background
google . Instead of its white zen background, if they go total black , people
would be interested why this change and will read why google did this.
Blocking will only make people go for another search engine.

------
ericb
While this would make a statement, somewhere I saw a good point--someone will
be googling to see if the snake that bit them was poisonous. Google is now
critical infrastructure, like power. If it goes out, people will quite
possibly die.

~~~
burgerbrain
I don't think that is a particularly good point.

If a snake bites you, and you are not sure if it is poisonous or not, _assume
that it is and go to the hospital_. Life or death health issues should not be
googled, they should be taken care of by professionals.

~~~
ericb
OK, lets use our imagination.

How about heart attack symptoms? Directions to the hospital? The phone number
for your doctor (on his website, which you find by googling). How to safely
use a chainsaw. What do when your toddler stops breathing. How to perform CPR.
Drug contraindications. Where to call in a gas leak.

~~~
burgerbrain
The answer to most of those is "911" (or your regional equivalent). The others
are not time critical, read the manual, ask whoever you rented it from, or
figure out how to use Bing.

I'm starting to feel old here...

~~~
mike-cardwell
Whilst you may not like his examples, you _do_ understand the point he's
making right?

~~~
daeken
The point he's making, largely, is that Google going out is a bad thing
because people use internet searches as a replacement for common sense. That's
not Google's fault.

~~~
ericb
Using google to fill in gaps in your knowledge is not "replacing common sense"
--doing so is USING common sense. Lets remove the straw man who visits the
hospital and calls 911 for all possible emergencies from the argument.
Learning that a numb _right_ arm is a heart attack symptom changes the
picture, and for better or worse, google is the main spicket for knowledge
these days.

Fault is irrelevant once the dependence is there. If you're at google,
flipping a switch, just like our dependence on power, could cost lives, and if
you care about human life, you have to think about it before you do it
regardless of whether would say it is your "fault."

I am about as anti-sopa as they come, so I'd personally like to see a gigantic
message, and see them name names and explain what services won't exist if this
passes.

~~~
burgerbrain
Googling _"Where to call in a gas leak"_ is almost certainly _not_ common
sense.

Similarly, the time spent looking up how to do CPR would be better spent
calling emergency services so that they head out as soon as possible.
Emergency dispatchers can talk you through CPR while you wait for them to
arrive.

You see, the thing about CPR is that it's not really meant to revive somebody.
It's meant to keep oxygen in their brain until something can actually be done.
Delaying the call for help so that you can learn all of this on Google is the
worst thing that you could do.

~~~
ericb
I have googled NSTAR's gas leak hotline from my phone, while walking down
Beacon street and reported a strong gas smell near an apartment building. You
think I should have called a different number first?

~~~
burgerbrain
Just call 911. I assume you do not actually have the training to fully assess
the situation, so let the professionals do it. For all you know there are
people that need medical attention in that sort of situation.

------
gernb
No, if Google and Facebook went dark they'd prove the political power that
they have and would immediately set in motion massive regulation of themselves
by governments. It would be a small victory followed by losing the war.

------
AndyFromKC
Just Dark any Facebook/Google Traffic going to Washington DC. Not enough to
cause stock/revenue/world panic... just enough to cause localized panic where
the target audience can feel it.

------
cyberroadie
They should make it go dark in Washington only, these companies are good in
targeted 'advertisement' anyway. I wonder how the government would react on a
blackout targeted only at them

~~~
GregBuchholz
They should also target the offices of the MPAA, RIAA, Viacom, etc. for a
blackout. And if people really want to do something effective, they should
boycott movie theaters, iTunes, and Netflix streaming that day. Am I the only
one cynical enough to think that the Google is only against SOPA so they'll
get a special exemption from the law, like McDonald's and the health care law?

[http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-h...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm)

------
baby
Google should display "Google is unavailable today because of SOPA [bla bla
bla] If you still want to access google go to google.fr or any european
google".

------
lr
Google and Facebook should remove all references to all politicians who
supports SOPA, even if they are running for president.

------
wyck
What about large user based content sites?

Wordpress and Tumblr account for millions of post/day.

~~~
Achshar
But they are divided into individual users and the space belongs to the users
and not tumblr/wordpress. I don't think changing other's blogs would be a very
good idea and will be frowned upon.

------
lhnn
Google:

"If SOPA passes, the search you're about to enter wouldn't be possible."

------
recoiledsnake
It would be a good idea to run a big black banner on Google instead of going
completely dark. Or one interstitial ad that interrupts search for 10 seconds
only once a day.

------
dbbo
I liked this one even better:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/11/reddits-
so...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/11/reddits-sopa-
blackout-admirable-but-google-and-facebook-must-follow/)

------
phzbOx
SOPAthetic

