Was the Warrior SOPA justified

15 replies
I understand that this is a privately owned forum to which I have belonged for 10 years or more but I question if the full lock down was justified.

Now I appreciate all the hard work that goes into maintaining this site so I am not overly critical of what was done on the Warrior forum however many other sites had a lock down but had a link down the bottom so as not to affect its clients.

For example I think Namecheap took a lot more rational approach.


It seems the big concern is that the Govt would get the power to just shut down a site and cause a lot of heartache if you were just a law abiding person who might have made a mistake or there was some mis understanding.

Funnily enough that is what happened yesterday when many sites simply refused their customers entry.

I understand that this was to give us a taste of what could potentially happen but why use the same tactics to make a point.

I think what sites like namecheap did was a lot more responsible.

This is not just happening in the US as it has been happening in many other countries for years. Its just that they don't have to tell the people they just do it.

In Australia they are trying to pass a similar sort of bill and I imagine in many other western countries as well.

Anyhow it was good to see the owners of this forum take a stand but it would have been nice to see something a little more creative and not follow the same tactics that they were objecting to.

What are your thoughts?
#justified #sopa #warrior
  • Profile picture of the author JimmyR
    There was a sentence in there somewhere saying "it would take you less time to take action than you would have spend browsing this forum today".

    I'm not even from the US and that made me want to complain to someone haha. It's a valid point - your life is still going to remain intact without WF for a day.

    On the other hand, the Wordpress and Wikipedia blackouts definitely messed me up a little!
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    • Profile picture of the author dougp
      Originally Posted by JimmyR View Post

      There was a sentence in there somewhere saying "it would take you less time to take action than you would have spend browsing this forum today".

      I'm not even from the US and that made me want to complain to someone haha. It's a valid point - your life is still going to remain intact without WF for a day.

      On the other hand, the Wordpress and Wikipedia blackouts definitely messed me up a little!
      If you needed to access wikiepdia all you needed to do was disable javascript from your browser. Now is probably a little too late to know that.

      Doug
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Quentin,

    My thoughts? If we'd left a "back door" into the place, people would have used it, gotten into discussions, and done nothing to stop the legislation.

    It would have been an empty gesture.


    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author princecapri
    You know what I find most interesting about the French? They strike because they face pay cuts. (I use this example because I was in France when they were striking against the Government)

    So they sit at home (or protest) and take a pay cut for one day, so that they don't have to take pay cuts later.

    I don't understand this point of view. Government could possibly shut you down, so you shut down yourself, albeit for a short period of time. Surely it would make sense to make a peaceful protest while continuing with your normal day, no? My website was up and running, though I clearly mentioned I was supporting SOPA.

    But I understand that WF is run privately, so the powers that be are free to chose what they wish! I guess.
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    • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
      Originally Posted by princecapri View Post

      I don't understand this point of view. Government could possibly shut you down, so you shut down yourself, albeit for a short period of time.
      Your French example backs up this approach. Make a noise today while you are in control so you don't have to make a noise after you have lost control.
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    • Profile picture of the author Gary Smith
      I think the blackout was about making people aware of just how serious this issue is rather than just making them aware. A black banner will garner a degree of attention. A black site (especially the likes of Wikipedia, Wordpress and WF) will produce a reaction along the lines of 'WTF, OMG!' and motivate a lot more people to find out what SOPA/PIPA is all about and how it will affect them if it becomes law.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Ward
    I personally gained a lot of respect for the owners/operators of the WF for doing what they did. It's not easy to give up an entire day's profit, not to mention impacting hundreds (thousands?) of other people that use WF in their businesses. SOPA is something every person on this forum should be concerned with, though. It could literally destroy many forms of internet marketing.

    I'm glad the blackout/protest happened here.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joe118
    Doesnt matter if it was justified or not. It's a forum owned by Allen Says and he decides what goes on here.

    That's the beginning, middle, and end of this story.
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  • Profile picture of the author redstanford
    i actually respect sites like the WF and wikipedia that completely shut down for the day even if it cut into their bottom line.

    google on the other hand, true to their nature i guess, only put a black box over their logo and still allowed full functionality of their engine. we can't take away searches from google can we?

    screw google. they did the bare minimum. you want to show America what their in for: make it so people can't use google for a day. that will certainly open some serious eyes
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

    In Australia they are trying to pass a similar sort of bill and I imagine in many other western countries as well.
    The law they are trying to introduce in Australia is nothing like this.

    Paul summed up my opinion as well: Why do it all if it is going to be half-ars...
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  • Profile picture of the author CyberAlien
    Why should there have been a backdoor left open for access to the site? It's really as simple as this:

    If the government shut down your website are they going to put a little button at the bottom that customers can click on if they *really* want to be able to see it?

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  • Profile picture of the author candoit2
    Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

    Anyhow it was good to see the owners of this forum take a stand but it would have been nice to see something a little more creative and not follow the same tactics that they were objecting to.

    What are your thoughts?
    Since you are complaining about not being able to access the WF, I hope you actually did your part today to make sure we will always have access to the WF.

    If not here is where you can do so if you are not in the US: http://americancensorship.org/modal/...ion/index.html
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  • Profile picture of the author rondo
    Quentin if you owned a forum with 400,000 members you'd probably feel justified!

    As you said Australia wants to implement the same type of thing, but the fact is we already have some SOPA-type laws here, ie no safe harbour protection for webmasters, and secret gov blacklists which means it's already too risky to own a large forum here.


    Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author Marvin Johnston
    I would have preferred some warning. But that said, I *really* doubt that websites terrorized by SOPA would have had any warning before they went dark.

    On the good side, I got more work done today .

    Marvin
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
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