CISPA Blackout? April 22, 2013 12:18 AM Subscribe
On April 22 some websites will protest CISPA with a blackout. In January 2012 MetaFilter joined the protest against SOPA/PIPA, are we going to join this one too?
CISPA still faces several obstacles before it becomes law. The Senate has been ignoring the bill, and the White House has threatened to veto it if necessary.
A blackout could hardly be more effective than sending the bill to the American Senate and even if it gets through the Drone Ranger will shoot it down. It would seem that this bill has as much chance as becoming law as a gun control measure so I don't see the point in getting all NRA about it.
posted by three blind mice at 1:36 AM on April 22, 2013
A blackout could hardly be more effective than sending the bill to the American Senate and even if it gets through the Drone Ranger will shoot it down. It would seem that this bill has as much chance as becoming law as a gun control measure so I don't see the point in getting all NRA about it.
posted by three blind mice at 1:36 AM on April 22, 2013
please don't shut down the site so that some people can feel like they are "making a difference"
posted by thelonius at 2:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 2:09 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
We aren't going to do that.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:28 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:28 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Blacking out" a website could just mean adding an "interstitial ad" that happens to do the opposite of advertising.
posted by LogicalDash at 3:13 AM on April 22, 2013
posted by LogicalDash at 3:13 AM on April 22, 2013
I'd prefer that metafilter not do anything that affiliates it with anon.
posted by empath at 3:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by empath at 3:16 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Just because some idiots are against something, doesn't mean if you are against it that you are affiliated with the idiots, or an idiot yourself any more than you become a 14 year old tweeting from your basement.
The EFF is against is as well.
Entertaining: Reddit Cofounder Calls on Google’s Larry Page to Oppose CISPA
Good write up: The Case For – And Against – Freaking Out About CISPA
posted by cjorgensen at 4:29 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
The EFF is against is as well.
Entertaining: Reddit Cofounder Calls on Google’s Larry Page to Oppose CISPA
Good write up: The Case For – And Against – Freaking Out About CISPA
posted by cjorgensen at 4:29 AM on April 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
We haven't discussed this at all. We can guarantee that if we do anything it won't be making the entire site dark.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:34 AM on April 22, 2013
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:34 AM on April 22, 2013
I donno if this blackout was announced early enough or distributed widely enough. The IDL's adorable cat-signal might be relevant, perhaps a small version somewhere.
There is a larger problem nobody has explained the problems with CISPA clearly enough for the general public. I'm trying to write a "more inflammatory" post about it for a popular blog I read occasionally, but I haven't yet finished.
In effect, CISPA makes some stuff that's done under "national security" into stuff doable for "cyber security" reasons, which might mean almost any reasons in practice. One thing that's really really bad about this is that it conceivably lets any agency, not just secretive spooks, use data mining to find suspects.
If that happens, then you'd expect law enforcement will go "Ah, facebook, google, yahoo, or whatever says this person has an 80% chance of being a drug dealer, tax evader, pimp, activist, whatever, we should clearly get into their life." As law enforcement is generally statistically incompetent, they'd tenaciously pursue perfectly innocent people, or good people who's crime improve society or do no harm.
Fundamentally, one reason that law enforcement works reasonably well is that they usually pursue people who are causing a problem. Sometimes they unjustly pursue people like activists who cause a good problems, like protests, but usually they restrict themselves to people who cause some sort of trouble. That could easily change when they start buying Facebook's list of 1000 Americans most likely to be selling drugs on silk road. (Silk road might make it qualify as cybersecurity somehow)
It's worse than SOPA/PIPA in many ways, but it's probably not the existencial threat for many websites that SOPA/PIPA was. I therefore understand if metafilter the site says "this is not our fight".
Conversely, if you find any really staggeringly great explanations of CISPA, or if some new interesting news story about the senate version appears, then you might make a new fpp about it. I should not do another post myself since I've already done one, but someone else could too if it was different enough.
Also, CISPA shits all over the 4th amendment, state actor doctrine, etc., so the courts might hopefully weaken it somewhat later.
Anyways, if the site wants to help, maybe a small version of the cat-signal is the best approach. Everyone likes cats!
posted by jeffburdges at 5:51 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
There is a larger problem nobody has explained the problems with CISPA clearly enough for the general public. I'm trying to write a "more inflammatory" post about it for a popular blog I read occasionally, but I haven't yet finished.
In effect, CISPA makes some stuff that's done under "national security" into stuff doable for "cyber security" reasons, which might mean almost any reasons in practice. One thing that's really really bad about this is that it conceivably lets any agency, not just secretive spooks, use data mining to find suspects.
If that happens, then you'd expect law enforcement will go "Ah, facebook, google, yahoo, or whatever says this person has an 80% chance of being a drug dealer, tax evader, pimp, activist, whatever, we should clearly get into their life." As law enforcement is generally statistically incompetent, they'd tenaciously pursue perfectly innocent people, or good people who's crime improve society or do no harm.
Fundamentally, one reason that law enforcement works reasonably well is that they usually pursue people who are causing a problem. Sometimes they unjustly pursue people like activists who cause a good problems, like protests, but usually they restrict themselves to people who cause some sort of trouble. That could easily change when they start buying Facebook's list of 1000 Americans most likely to be selling drugs on silk road. (Silk road might make it qualify as cybersecurity somehow)
It's worse than SOPA/PIPA in many ways, but it's probably not the existencial threat for many websites that SOPA/PIPA was. I therefore understand if metafilter the site says "this is not our fight".
Conversely, if you find any really staggeringly great explanations of CISPA, or if some new interesting news story about the senate version appears, then you might make a new fpp about it. I should not do another post myself since I've already done one, but someone else could too if it was different enough.
Also, CISPA shits all over the 4th amendment, state actor doctrine, etc., so the courts might hopefully weaken it somewhat later.
Anyways, if the site wants to help, maybe a small version of the cat-signal is the best approach. Everyone likes cats!
posted by jeffburdges at 5:51 AM on April 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Mefi blackout partay
posted by nathancaswell at 6:53 AM on April 22, 2013
posted by nathancaswell at 6:53 AM on April 22, 2013
I will do my part by blacking out while reading MetaFilter. Will you do your part?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:23 AM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:23 AM on April 22, 2013 [13 favorites]
It's worse than SOPA/PIPA in many ways, but it's probably not the existencial threat for many websites that SOPA/PIPA was.
I think this is a key point. This, plus the fact that the SOPA/PIPA protest was in large part to educate and spread the message to the broader public. That message being, "If SOPA/PIPA passes, this website could be permanently taken down."
CISPA, as jeffburdges notes, would not take down any websites. If the object of a CISPA protest is also to spread the word, the protest needs to illustrate the bad things that would happen if it passed. Blacking out a website does not accurately illustrate the problem with CISPA (it did with SOPA/PIPA) and would only cause confusion, and potentially dilute the message of the SOPA/PIPA protests. A good protest against CISPA (not saying MetaFilter should do this, just as an illustration of how to depict the potential harm of CISPA) might be to have a box shown at the top of a site to logged-in users (and perhaps even non-logged-in users based on IP) showing information on that user that would be available to the government without a warrant under CISPA, say, key topics generated from data and text mining based on the user's activity on the site. And if the mining is badly done and doesn't accurately reflect the user's activity on the site, well, that might be even better as an illustration of the problem.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:22 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think this is a key point. This, plus the fact that the SOPA/PIPA protest was in large part to educate and spread the message to the broader public. That message being, "If SOPA/PIPA passes, this website could be permanently taken down."
CISPA, as jeffburdges notes, would not take down any websites. If the object of a CISPA protest is also to spread the word, the protest needs to illustrate the bad things that would happen if it passed. Blacking out a website does not accurately illustrate the problem with CISPA (it did with SOPA/PIPA) and would only cause confusion, and potentially dilute the message of the SOPA/PIPA protests. A good protest against CISPA (not saying MetaFilter should do this, just as an illustration of how to depict the potential harm of CISPA) might be to have a box shown at the top of a site to logged-in users (and perhaps even non-logged-in users based on IP) showing information on that user that would be available to the government without a warrant under CISPA, say, key topics generated from data and text mining based on the user's activity on the site. And if the mining is badly done and doesn't accurately reflect the user's activity on the site, well, that might be even better as an illustration of the problem.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:22 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Proposal: run some NSA style data mining on the infodump looking for incriminating comments. When a user lands on Metafilter, he gets a personalized banner that says something like 'If CISPA become law, we would have to tell the police that you hate cops, have used LSD and don't think Israel is a legitimate state' or 'you hate cats, want the whole internet to find out?'.
This would work even better in reddit.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:38 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
This would work even better in reddit.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:38 AM on April 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
Interesting idea, but quite involved. You'd need to ask the researchers who developed the facebook like based sexuality, drug use, politics, etc. detector app, understand what they did, and apply it to comments. It's far easier to simply present their existing facebook app as an anti-CISPA protest.
Afaik, there is no compulsion to sell user data built into CISPA presently. Yes, one could imagine that changing after a decade or two of law enforcement enjoying more data. Imho, this make the facebook app the more honest and effective protest though. In other words, nobody imagines reddit or mefi selling user data, but everyone just expects facebook to do so.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2013
Afaik, there is no compulsion to sell user data built into CISPA presently. Yes, one could imagine that changing after a decade or two of law enforcement enjoying more data. Imho, this make the facebook app the more honest and effective protest though. In other words, nobody imagines reddit or mefi selling user data, but everyone just expects facebook to do so.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2013
We haven't discussed this at all. We can guarantee that if we do anything it won't be making the entire site dark.
How about a professional black background?
posted by davejay at 12:07 PM on April 22, 2013
How about a professional black background?
posted by davejay at 12:07 PM on April 22, 2013
It's worse than SOPA/PIPA in many ways, but it's probably not the existencial threat for many websites that SOPA/PIPA was.
No, this time they decided to screw the people instead of the corporations.
posted by yerfatma at 12:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
No, this time they decided to screw the people instead of the corporations.
posted by yerfatma at 12:15 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Today is Earth Day. It's also, coincidentally, the last day for submitting public comment on the Keystone XL project. It's probably not a great instance of movement coordination that websites are choosing to blackout today in protest of CISPA. But I guess maybe that's just me.
posted by koeselitz at 3:17 PM on April 22, 2013
posted by koeselitz at 3:17 PM on April 22, 2013
Did anybody black out today? This wasn't a well planned or organized thing.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2013
posted by jeffburdges at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2013
It's worse than SOPA/PIPA in many ways, but it's probably not the existencial threat for many websites that SOPA/PIPA was.
I think this is a key point. This, plus the fact that the SOPA/PIPA protest was in large part to educate and spread the message to the broader public. That message being, "If SOPA/PIPA passes, this website could be permanently taken down."
That makes sense.
posted by homunculus at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2013
I think this is a key point. This, plus the fact that the SOPA/PIPA protest was in large part to educate and spread the message to the broader public. That message being, "If SOPA/PIPA passes, this website could be permanently taken down."
That makes sense.
posted by homunculus at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2013
Did anybody black out today?
I can't remember.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:18 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
I can't remember.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:18 PM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
We shouldn't let Mefi drink so much that it blacks out. It's not good for Mefi's liver.
posted by IndigoRain at 6:38 PM on April 22, 2013
posted by IndigoRain at 6:38 PM on April 22, 2013
Yeah Reddit. well some of it did. Makes for reading the site impossible but hey maybe a Senator or two is a redditor and will totally not take the corporate money now.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:01 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Anonymous and Libertarians Protest CISPA; Tech Giants Don't Give a Damn
Looks like about 900 sites have participated in a blackout. That compares to about 7000 for the SOPA/PIPA blackout.
posted by triggerfinger at 7:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Looks like about 900 sites have participated in a blackout. That compares to about 7000 for the SOPA/PIPA blackout.
posted by triggerfinger at 7:51 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
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posted by taz (staff) at 12:38 AM on April 22, 2013