Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter threaten to go offline over SOPA.

[Vidi Kitty]

I for one like SOPA, My bank and I have looked over the details and decided this was in line with the constitution.

you sir are brave.

Or very stupid...

Not trying to be insulting, but stating something like this is along the lines of supporting westboro when they protest a soldiers funeral or scientology when they drain someone's bank accounts...

Or joking? You must be joking no one with sence supports this

True. Anyone with any amount of foresight can see what this is going to do to every social site on the web. Not everyone has that though, and not everyone with it is going to pay attention to it.

Actually a very large amount of people are either intentionally ignorant or really just don't get it for SOPA to have come this far, and that worries me.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

To those claiming that Google and co. are the "big guys"... Not in this conflict. It's a matter of relative scale. Facebook, Google and Yahoo are three of the largest internet corporations... But look at what they're up against: essentially the entire film, music, and gaming industry. Those things are industry TITANS. Sure, Google's big, but you know who else is big? Apple. Sony. Microsoft. Yeah. Suddenly, Facebook isn't looking like the monstrosity any more, huh?

Anyways, that said, I really hope this happens.

Yes but those companies do not have the public using their products to do almost everything every day. Google is the biggest search engine, if that goes then people cannot search for anything and pretty much every website would be inaccesible for people that day. If facebook goes down then millions of people's most used form of communication would not be available that day. If twitter goes down then millions of people can't tweet their random stuff that day which would probably make a lot of people pissed off. Think about it this way. When hackers hacked into the PSN and left it down for a month, hackers didn't get any more recognition. Whereas if Google, Facebook and Twitter go down for even a day it would be on international news and millions upon millions of people from around the world will know what SOPA is. Sony, Microsoft and Apple may have the Lawyers and stuff. But the side on SOPA basically controls a massive amount of people's lives and social lives. If people know that they will go down if SOPA hits then damn right people aren't going to like SOPA.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I agree that it should be a week.

I'd say take Youtube down while you're at it, but that might be a bit too far.

Would be nice if the rest of 'em remained offline though.

Can't say I wouldn't appreciate that too, though.

Youtube would be taken down, and it would be taken down forever if SOPA hits. Youtube is owned by Google so if they do this right then google would shut down EVERYTHING they own.

If youtube went down then a lot of people can't advertise anything for a day and a lot of people can't earn income for a day. Something that would be much badder if SOPA hits.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

i was thinking about SOPA this morning and i noticed a pretty major flaw in its entire point.
it lets companies take american sites down if they think they're piracy sites, right?
one big piracy site is thepiratebay, right?
its swedish.
basically, its like the war on terror if we blew up our own buildings to stop the terrorists blowing them up. it works, but it doesnt get rid of the problem.

I sort of want them to do it. For no other reason than we'll see how much the internet relies on one company.

i dont actually use google, except chrome and i can switch browsers. i use bookmarks. i havent googled anything in weeks, since i built my bookmark library.
my mother, who buys literally all our food online because we have no car, googles everything. including Tesco. to buy our food. which we need to live.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

I agree that it should be a week.

I'd say take Youtube down while you're at it, but that might be a bit too far.

Would be nice if the rest of 'em remained offline though.

Can't say I wouldn't appreciate that too, though.

Youtube would be taken down, and it would be taken down forever if SOPA hits. Youtube is owned by Google so if they do this right then google would shut down EVERYTHING they own.

If youtube went down then a lot of people can't advertise anything for a day and a lot of people can't earn income for a day. Something that would be much badder if SOPA hits.

You're preaching to the choir, for one thing; you don't need to tell me what the potential consequences of bills like this are.

That said, Youtube is owned by Google, but it's not really considered Google; Google's name or logo aren't even present on the majority of the site, which can't be said for any of their other services, so while you may need to get your head examined if you didn't know Gmail was headed by Google, for example, I don't think it's too whacky for one to be unaware Youtube is. Thus, while it might be implied that what Google does as a whole is also done with Youtube, it isn't necessarily confirmed.

 

[Whateveralot]

Wtf Apple... I knew they were dicks, but this makes no sense (but I guess with ITunes being a big part of their company, I can't entirely blame them.

That said, if google gets involved in this properly. Wow. If they cut all connections, I wouldn't even be able to navigate on my phone (for that said day, of course). I'm a big fan of open-source and I think the internet should stay exactly as what it is now.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

i was thinking about SOPA this morning and i noticed a pretty major flaw in its entire point.
it lets companies take american sites down if they think they're piracy sites, right?
one big piracy site is thepiratebay, right?
its swedish.


Actually the whole point of SOPA is to protect against foreign sites. Currently they can't shut down Pirate Bay because it's not in the USA. SOPA allows US ISPs to block foreign sites from US web users, and US companies like Paypal from doing business with them.

They don't take the site down just block it.

I sort of want them to do it. For no other reason than we'll see how much the internet relies on one company.

i dont actually use google, except chrome and i can switch browsers. i use bookmarks. i havent googled anything in weeks, since i built my bookmark library.
my mother, who buys literally all our food online because we have no car, googles everything. including Tesco. to buy our food. which we need to live.

I'm thinking more companies than individuals. The Escapist's search function is powered by Google, and a lot of businesses use Google Maps on their websites and Google docs for their paperwork. What about GMail? Again lots of businesses and home users use it. I'm not familiar with Android, but I'd bet a lot of info from an Android phone comes from Google servers.

 

[VoidWanderer]

While I found the article about Ron Paul winning causing a US Civil War, SOPA would make any soccer-based riot look like an accounting convention.

I'll bring the popcorn, because that'll be fun to watch

 

[Sexy Devil]

I for one like SOPA, My bank and I have looked over the details and decided this was in line with the constitution.

you sir are brave.

Or very stupid...

Not trying to be insulting, but stating something like this is along the lines of supporting westboro when they protest a soldiers funeral or scientology when they drain someone's bank accounts...

EDIT: aka asking for it

http://ponyvillegazette.com/files/2011/09/my_little_pony_friendship_is_magic_2x02_the_return_of_harmony_part_2_08_discord_with_a_target-1024x576.jpg

Quite certain he's parodying the corporate position on it.

 

[CleverCover]

Do it Facebook, Google and Twitter. FUCKING DO IT!

That is as close to an apocalypse as people are willing to get. I can name people who will KILL people if they can't be on Facebook all day as sad as that sounds.

At first glance, this is one of the best ways to get people to notice this law. Have it affect their daily lives and everyone gets upset.

 

[The Funslinger]

As much as i'll be annoyed if it does happen, my opinion is that they NEED to do this. Not only will it gain more support for the ANTI-SOPA movement, but it'll no doubt affect the fat cats in congree and they'll be hit with massive anger.

Go for it you guys, we still having video-games to tide us over for the day.

Indeed. It'll be the splash of ice water to the face people need.

That said, I also think it'll do people good to go without facebook for a day, regardless.

 

[D0WNT0WN]

Well im fine with Facebook going down, but I will find it very hard to internet without Google. I think the main result would be like that Simpsons episode where Itchy & Scratchy gets censored and all the kids go outside.

 

[The Funslinger]

i was thinking about SOPA this morning and i noticed a pretty major flaw in its entire point.
it lets companies take american sites down if they think they're piracy sites, right?
one big piracy site is thepiratebay, right?
its swedish.
basically, its like the war on terror if we blew up our own buildings to stop the terrorists blowing them up. it works, but it doesnt get rid of the problem.

Didn't know Pirate Bay was Swedish.

That's hilarious. Then again, Torrent Freak (I think it was called) is American (I think) but that's barely going to be more than an inconvenience to pirated content users, lasting about the two minutes it takes to hop over to pirate bay instead and find what you were initially looking for.

Then again, while a lot of things are American based, aren't a lot of popular things that the pro-SOPA people don't like hosted on European servers? (even when they're run by Americans) so arguably, all they'll be able to do is stop Americans from accessing those websites. A lot of their stuff will still be pirated by Europeans. Only thing I can think of is if the American government essentially built a wall. Nobody in, nobody out. Even then, the business losses they sustained would NOT be worth it.

Are these people five year olds, or something?

 

[iLazy]

I hope they do it. Only because I'd love to see what happens when Facebook goes down. That, and I really think this would open people's eyes. I've mentioned SOPA more then once to my friends, and all of them have replied "What? What's that?" when I told them what it could do, they were very against it but none of them seemed to realize how big it was.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, I'm begging you to do this. Show everyone how SOPA could change the internet.

 

[Broady Brio]

I think I can survive a whole 24 hours without those websites. A month? Probably not, but that's not what is potentially happening.

 

[redisforever]

I doubt that it would make a diffrence. Who uses these websites daily? Companies mabey, but certainly not people.

Google. Everybody uses it daily, in some way. I search a lot, I use Gmail, I watch Youtube videos. All down.

I applaud them for their bravery, but this could cause trouble.

 

[Flight]

I hope they do it, because it still, frighteningly, looks like it's going to pass. I can live without e-mail and the like for a day if it means stopping this bill.

 

[Dunkerloop]

Seems like a great Idea to me. Show congress what will actually happen if this idiotic bill passes.