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Whitehouse.gov petition to veto SOPA
- waffle_ss 15y agoThe WH petition system is to political activism what Twitter is to people's social commentary... effectively redirect everything to /dev/null and make them think they've made their voices heard (although I think that this particular one is quite clever).
- orbenn 15y agoWhat is SOPA and why should you care about it? Short serious video: http://youtu.be/1ngRPuXpCIw http://youtu.be/1ngRPuXpCIw Long sarcastic video with a British accent: http://youtu.be/JhwuXNv8fJM http://youtu.be/JhwuXNv8fJM
- akavlie 15y agoI expect that this petition will be just as effective as all the others.
- JonnieCache 15y agoGovernmental e-petitions: ignoring the public more efficiently than ever before. Actually now in britain we have it set up so whenever one of these gets 100,000 votes, it must be debated in parliament. One of the few useful or interesting things cameron has done. Of course they are quite rightly not bound to do anything more than debate it, and in the long run it will probably just be a more efficient way of shutting people up. "Look, we've debated it, we've given parliamentary time to your issue, what more do you want? This is a representative democracy you know!"
- omouse 15y agoI think that makes it a bit worse. Those debates are more than good enough for a lot of people who don't care much. "Oh look they debated things! Welp, back to the grind!" Even worse, if enough petitions get that many votes, it could be spun as a problem for politicians who want to get things done, "The public keeps wanting us to debate these stupid issues! We can't get to the more important things!" Yes it sounds far-fetched, but some newspapers will sink that low...
- viraptor 15y agoI think you're spreading FUD really. Have a look at current UK petitions which have passed the 100k votes: fuel prices - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/347 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/347 (small decrease implemented, plans for the future shared) immigration - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658 (basic plans shared, recently implemented changes listed, already heard some people having visa issues, so something is happening) summer riots - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7337 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7337 (no direct actions, but response means pretty much "this is happening anyways", there's some more information about what the local authorities can do) Hillsborough 1989 - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2199 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2199 (accepted, disclosure will happen) financial education - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/8903 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/8903 (this one does look like a non-answer, but maybe they're really doing the reviews now) private pensions - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1535 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1535 (no response yet, only crossed the line recently) While I'm not crazy about all the answers, there was some effect (or at least an explanation or a commitment to the original plan). They're quite far from "a more efficient way of shutting people up" the way it's presented in the comments here.
- JonnieCache 15y agoAll that stuff is relatively non-controversial though, I don't consider the system to have been really tested until the people demand something the government really doesn't want to do. When we get a million signatures against war in iran, or to unilaterally leave the EU or something, then we'll see what happens.
- estel 15y agoUncontroversial to remove all Government benefits from those convicted of involvement in the Summer Riots?
- lallysingh 15y agoIt's a data point on public opinion. Remember that all the lobbying money spent in the US is there only to swing public opinion ~10% on an election. In the truth-vacuum of DC, it's pretty relevant.
- rhizome 15y agoRemember that all the lobbying money spent in the US is there only to swing public opinion ~10% on an election. OT, but is it then reasonable to infer that the increasing closeness of Presidential elections over the past couple of decades may have simply been a cost-cutting operation by the lobbying industry?
- rorrr 15y agoOur government showed us many times that they don't give a shit about these petitions.
- orthecreedence 15y agoEvery time I've voted on a whitehouse.gov petition, I've gotten an email 6 months later saying why the petition will be completely ignored, answering none of the points the petition brought up. The petition system is an ineffectual smokescreen.
- dpeck 15y agoSeems quite effective to me if it keeps the signers from taking any additional action for 6 months. Its likely doing exactly what those setting it intended.
- orthecreedence 15y agoLack of communication and inaction are two very different things though. In the case of SOPA, they would pass the bill next week, then email petition singers 6 months after the fact on how anti-American the petition is. The petition in this hypothetical situation didn't delay anything, but prompted a communication at a later date.
- rst 15y agoYou could imagine that one of these petitions might bring an issue that they weren't aware of to some staffer's attention. But this administration clearly already has a very strong view in favor of intellectual property protection by any means available, regardless of the consequences. It's one they've made manifest by pushing ACTA (among other things), and it's really hard to imagine a petition like this changing it.
- rhizome 15y agoYes, think of the future! "If all the time and effort I spent results in just one petition-scanning staffer becoming aware of my pet issue, it will have been worth it." You might as well pin your hopes of affecting the political process on sowing copies of your journal pages around Congress, hoping that just one profound sentence reaches one of their eyes. It doesn't sound like a lot, but man, if they read one of those sentences, right? It could change everything.
- wdewind 15y agoI was on a conference call w/ Zoe Lofgren (CA congress woman who is on the Judiciary fighting the hell out of this bill) and a bunch of NYC tech companies last weekend and she said petitions are essentially ignored, and instead to make phone calls to your reps and directly into the capital. This isn't to say don't sign this, but if you are really concerned, the absolute bottom line is phone calls. Anything you can do to funnel phone calls in is what counts. Edit: Let me add this, which makes it absurdly easy: http://fightforthefuture.org/ http://fightforthefuture.org/
- nostromo 15y agoBe sure to read the petition -- unlike most of them, it's actually smart political commentary: It mocks SOPA by having whitehouse.gov itself link to a website that's infringing copyright. The joke is that whitehouse.gov could itself be removed from the DNS system under SOPA. This is the first use of the White House petitioning system that I think is actually really clever. (Honorable mention: Petition to Please Take Petitions Seriously.)
- wdewind 15y agoI did. I think 'cute' is a better term. Rest assured this will get just as ignored as any other. Please call your rep.
- 18pfsmt 15y agoWhat if your Rep is Polis?
- lazugod 15y ago(Assuming Polis is one of the sponsors of SOPA) Call them anyways. Mention that you're from their district.
- nostromo 15y agoPolis is actually "one of us" -- he made a good amount of money doing startups. He opposes SOPA. In this case, call him up and send him some love for doing the right thing. He's a pretty awesome guy -- check him out here entering the lyrics to "The Internet is for Porn" from Avenue Q into the congressional record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owyNvlVJ1qE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owyNvlVJ1qE
- msluyter 15y agoI created an account in order to sign this, but when I try to sign in I get a 404 -- using Chrome. Anyone else get that?
- rgbrgb 15y agoIn Safari every time I try to sign in, it just redirects me to the page I was already on without signing me in.
- colanderman 15y agoThis happens to me in every browser I've tried (Opera, Chrome, FF, and ELinks). Maybe we can start a petition to... oh wait...
- orbenn 15y agoDidn't work for me in Chrome, but it worked in IE. Figures eh?
- rhizome 15y agoIt'll let you in as soon as it's done downloading your email.
- slamdunc 15y agoI got it as well, in FF. Most of the time, these things get a one-strike-and-adios policy for me, but on this it seems important enough to try again later...
- SomeCallMeTim 15y agoI just tried in Chrome and Firefox. Finally tried IE. Guess what? It worked. Sigh.
- jtheory 15y agoI saw the 404 the second time I tried to sign in. The first time worked -- seemingly -- but returning to the petition page gave me this riddle: http://imgur.com/Flzuk http://imgur.com/Flzuk Notice the bar on the bottom showing I'm signed in. And the prompt to sign in before I can vote. Can't seem to get past that no matter what I try. I'll try IE, I guess.
- omouse 15y agoPetitions don't work. The Founding Fathers knew that...
- vectorpush 15y agoI don't understand this fascination with internet petitions. Hasn't it been demonstrated to the point of absurdity that our government does not care? Before anyone claims "OH, so we should just do nothing instead????". Posting a dubious e-signature to an internet petition does nothing. There are people out in the streets sleeping in parks getting pepper sprayed and arrested because the government can't simply ignore it (unlike every single internet petition). Filling out a whitehouse petition is like getting punched in the face by your boss then slipping a folded piece of paper into the complaint box he put in the break-room next to the donuts.
- rhizome 15y agoThe fascination is with poisoning the well. A lot of people have the interest and energy to do exactly one thing politically, and in this age of OWS and global uprising it's in the interests of the status quo to eliminate the effect of this low-hanging fruit. The people who create and post internet petitions are evil and/or stupid, without exception.
- ericd 15y agoSo you're saying that some online petitions are actually meant to diffuse dissent about the thing they're petitioning? That would be a stroke of evil genius if it's true. Doesn't strike me as being the case so much as their being driven by naive idealism, but in the case of the whitehouse one, it's at least conceivable. In the long run, it's probably just going to demonstrate to a lot of people that online petitions are mostly counterproductive.
- anrope 15y agoEveryone is mentioning how petitions don't work, which I agree with. (Sidenote: I think it is an extra step worse that the government put up a website for petitions, and still ignores their own system. Random petitions (e.g. "\signed" forum posts) are one thing, but this is more like toying with people.) That said, I think this petition has something important that other whitehouse.gov petitions don't: in that, under SOPA, there is actually technically a possibility that the government would censor itself (via whitehouse.gov), which is pretty funny if you think about it. Edit: I suppose I mean "funny" in a darker sense.
- dmauro 15y agoCan't sign in or register in Chrome 15 ?
- mrinterweb 15y agoI can't sign in either using FF7. Something must be up with the website.
- ktom 15y agoOddly enough, I browsed around to another page and was able to create an account from there. You apparently just cannot create an account from that particular page. For whatever reason account creation doesn't work from the 'Stop SOPA' petition page.
- pud 15y agoI didn't realize that anyone could create petitions on WhiteHouse.gov. Were it not for the casual writing style, I might have thought this was an official petition from the White House. Neat. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions
- rhizome 15y agoThat's by design.
- kodisha 15y ago8k votes... that is just sad...
- dpe82 15y agoIn a couple hours. On a Sunday.
- polymatter 15y agoon a law that is one step shy of banning the whole internet world-wide. since pretty much every site allows some user content and a single accusation will down that entire site, i'd hope for a better response than that. edit: banning is too harsh. censored to the agreement of all corporate interests, all potential corporate interests and the interests of those rich and American enough to have influence
- dpe82 15y agoWell quit griping about the lack of involvement and go tell some people about it to help increase the number.
- dpe82 15y agoAnd now 2 hours later it's at 11,794.
- neilparikh 15y agoI'm in Canada, and I've realized that SOPA would damage me too, since the domain would be removed from the DNS. People here are suggesting calling their representatives, but which one should I call? Would they even bother listening to someone, who ate the end of the day, is not going affect their chance of reelection? I'd still like to be able to do something since SOPA and Protect IP are quite horrible laws.
- ComputerGuru 15y agoFWIW, when you call a Senator or Congressperson, they ask for your name and zip. Nothing else. You can theoretically grab any zipcode in their district off of Google and use it. Just saying.
- forgotmyuser 15y agohow do I make an acc? I dont see a form!
- joshuahedlund 15y agoFor all the discussion about worthless Internet petitions, it should be noted that the White House form is specifically set up to at least elicit a response if a certain threshold is reached. The threshold was originally 5,000 signatures but was raised to 25,000 after the White House responded to pleas for information about extraterrestrials. If they gave a response to that arguably silly request, it is reasonable to think they will at least respond to this one. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45176460/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/white-house-theres-no-sign-et-or-ufo-cover-up/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45176460/ns/technology_and_scien...
- twainer 15y agoSomething shady going on with this petition? I logged in - first time every looking at it - and it says "You've already signed this petition." ???
- dlikhten 15y agoI received another letter from the white house. I am going to say it now. whitehouse.gov is BS. It is complete and utter bs. You are lucky if an intern looks at it, probably just a pre-canned response to any media whatever. All these petitions say is "bla bla bla write me some bs" We need a better methodology.
- Joakal 15y agoI disagree, although I'll sign it. A petition should be created to not only stop SOPA but demand INTERNET FREEDOM laws. This will make it impossible to present any SOPA without repealing the law as there's a direct conflict. Otherwise there'll be another attempt at SOPA after outrage fatigue. And there had been many before.
- ComputerGuru 15y agoGuys, the link doesn't load properly if you have Ghostery enabled. I'm not sure what WH.gov is doing to load that petition from another domain via JS, but disabling Ghostery makes things work OK.
- nestlequ1k 15y agoNot a chance. Election is coming up and we're talking about 100s of millions of dollars of contributions from the entertainment industry. He'll sign it. On the other hand, if he veto's maybe we can make up the difference. I'd be happy to contribute to a president who is a proven proponent of internet liberty. I just don't have the bankroll of the hollywood execs. Maybe some of the recent internet billionaires can fill in the gaps.
- TheCapn 15y agoI like the tactic the petition used by even if they took the time to treat it seriously this is the only 2 outcomes... 1) The petition gets removed for containing infringing content or worse... 2) The government moves towards removing imgur.com because it is doing the hosting of the infringing content I know, I know its absurd, but who really believes that that link can bring down whitehouse.gov?
- lukejduncan 15y agoEvery time I've tried logging in with an existing account to sign anything I've always gotten a 404 after.