{"id":2398,"date":"2012-02-22T15:18:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T23:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2398"},"modified":"2012-03-01T11:28:21","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:28:21","slug":"online-blackout-protests-begin-with-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/02\/22\/online-blackout-protests-begin-with-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Online blackout protests begin with success"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the internet being so engrained in everyday life and communication, it\u2019s no wonder that the largest protest in online history had real-world consequences.<\/p>\n

That online protest was an internet blackout on January 18 in which tens of millions of people from all over the world banded together to challenge and successfully shelve the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These two American bills stood to fundamentally alter how the internet works worldwide in an attempt to control online piracy.<\/p>\n

Large corporations such as Google, Wikipedia, reddit, WordPress, and Tumblr all participated in the blackout, showcasing just how powerful internet communities can be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Reddit.com's Erik Martin (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI think any of us that spend a lot of time online and in internet communities, we see things happen a lot, we see them go from just an idea or a seed of something and grow into a big phenomenon,\u201d says reddit.com general manager Erik Martin. \u201cI think that just changes the way we look at the world and the way we look at what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with the protest\u2019s success, there\u2019s talk over whether or not the blackout will have any lasting effects on the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hope it makes it so online communities, or citizens online, can discuss political issues and things that affect them in spaces that aren\u2019t necessarily political,\u201d says Martin.<\/p>\n

And while the protest proved that people have a say in matters that affect their online lives, there\u2019s still much left for those people to do if they want to change the current state of online affairs… and shape where the future is headed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first small step of many to get the online communities legitimized in political discussion,\u201d says Camosun university transfer student Michael Flynn.<\/p>\n

But Martin worries that the protests may not have changed the conversation regarding online piracy and the way that large media companies view it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a lot people in the tech community keep trying to say is that the solution to this is innovation and better service,\u201d he says. \u201cThese industries need to invest in and take more seriously the idea of selling digital goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of where people stand on piracy and privacy issues, it seems clear to everyone that media companies will have to adjust to the internet to stay competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know anyone who wants to go to the store and actually buy DVDs anymore,\u201d says Richard Edwards, another university transfer student. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point when you can get it in seconds on your computer?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the internet being so engrained in everyday life and communication, it\u2019s no wonder that the largest protest in online history had real-world consequences. That online protest was an internet blackout on January 18 in which tens of millions of people from all over the world banded together to challenge and successfully shelve the Stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-february-22-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2398"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2526,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions\/2526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}