

Reddit Users to Target Supporters of SOPA in Congress After GoDaddy - mattvot
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/28/reddit-users-to-target-supporters-of-sopa-in-congress-after-successful-boycott-of-godaddy/

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SomeCallMeTim
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think it would be good to
put the Fear of Screwing Constituents back into our Representatives and
Senators, and picking one to slam for selling out to Hollywood could be a step
in that direction.

But keep in mind there are also large groups of people who could organize and
use this as a model to promote an agenda that most of us would be horrified
by.

In the case of SOPA, I don't expect a huge grass-roots community making any
serious headway in favor of the legislation, because most of the people who
care about SOPA at all hate it.

But there are large communities who:

1\. Believe that vaccines are bad.

2\. Believe that the global climate isn't changing, or that it's not caused by
us.

3\. Believe that abortion should remain legal/be abolished (pick the side you
don't like).

...and on and on. Do we really want a group to model how to destroy a
politician using data mining and potentially nefarious hacking, when it's an
issue that WE support that they're being targeted for?

It seems like a step in the wrong direction -- taken to an extreme,
politicians would be forced to never do anything that might offend a large
enough group, and frankly sometimes such decisions need to be made. It's a
Pandora's box, for sure.

NOTE: Not here to discuss the merits of #1-3 above. They're just for
illustration.

~~~
mattvot
Hmm, I'm not as skeptical. At the very foundation, a democracy is about
tending for the majority. As models like this become more popular there will
be campaigns that you may not agree with, but as long as there are enough
people opposed to the campaign it shouldn't be a problem.

If there aren't enough people opposing the campaign, well ... that's
democracy.

~~~
yangez
Majority rule can become toxic by steamrolling minorities. For instance, just
because the majority of the United States is caucasian doesn't mean the U.S.
should pass laws favoring white people over other races. Incidentally one of
the reasons why the Constitution inserted middlemen between citizens and
legislative power was to prevent this sort of mob rule.

The founders didn't anticipate the Internet, though. If the internet mob
(read: reddit) actually manages to start instilling fear in legislators and
affecting laws disproportionately, it will be very interesting - and possibly
frightening - to see what happens next.

~~~
mattvot
Perhaps, but I'd like to think that the majority in a democracy would not push
aside minorities.

Using your metaphor: There will be some caucasians that favor laws that
benefit caucasians over others, but I would hope that the majority of
caucasians would see that it is not ethical and not support such laws.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Your hope is not the human experience of 3,000 years. Freedom is the goal,
democracy is just the mechanism, and the passions of democratic mob rule need
to be tempered to protect freedom.

~~~
mattvot
Well in the last 3,000 years there has never been the medium for the
population to voice their opinions and collaborate at such a large scale.
Civilizations were run by the rich, not the population.

My hope is that eventually people will accept 'net supported politics as a way
to support true democracy.

If freedom is the goal, then freedom has to be the goal of the majority. Yes,
democracy is a mechanism, but we have never truly seen a way for populations
to organize politics on mass before.

Democracy in the past (and now) has been an act for representatives that can
have their own agenda.

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jongalloway2
Top contributors to Lamar Smith (founder of SOPA) campaign:
[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=201...](http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00001811&type=I&newmem=N)

~~~
jongalloway2
Google's one of his top 10 campaign sponsors. What's the story there?

~~~
yangez
Google donates to many people on both sides - it doesn't mean they support
SOPA. For example, they donated more than 6x that amount to Zoe Lofgren:

[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Car...](http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00007479&type=I)

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smiler
Often when people face opposition they (we) interpret it as 'I must be doing
something right' and it only validates to them what they are doing and will
make them even more determined which I think will happen in this case.

To receive opposition / criticism, you have to be a very secure person to
receive it well. Considering Politicians live on the opinion of others, I
doubt they handle it well.

If we're honest, all of us get into a 'me against the world' mentality about
plenty of things

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FormStorm
Someone explain this logic to me - I'm not seeing it. There were 150 companies
on the list of SOPA supporters. The internet went after exactly one of them,
Godaddy. I'm as happy as anyone to see Godaddy sweat, but who is going after
the other 149? Are we saying the mighty mighty power of social media is that
limited? Yes, that's exactly what we're saying.

Like SomeCallMeTim, I have reservations about targeting representatives in
this way. I'm surprised no one on any forum is talking about targeting the
other 149 companies who deserve some backlash. We're saying they can do what
they like with impunity. Who is talking about this? Why are we not talking
about this instead?

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srdev
Boycotts against the other companies have been discussed. It was explained to
me as wanting to make an example. Rather than spreading a boycott out over 149
companies, they wanted to pick one or two and dog-pile on them, so that the
effects are more visible.

~~~
FormStorm
Fair enough but targeting elected officials, whose job it is to cast votes on
all manner of controversial issues, not just this one, is a ridiculous
expenditure of resources. Pointing the gun in the wrong direction here, let's
focus on the companies who supported SOPA and let them feel the sting. It just
feels like Reddit is drunk on their own power and have stopped thinking about
what the point of all this was. Perhaps the point wasn't to diminish our
system of representation in this way.

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espeed
If politicians don't cooperate, a tactic lobbyists use is to threaten to throw
their weight behind the politician's challengers.

Set up a site to donate to all the SOPA supporters' challengers.

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wccrawford
You know what? I'd like to see this done to every single politician. Air out
all the closets. Let the whole world know exactly what we elect to office.
Only once that's clear will we start to change and elect those who are
actually worthy.

