F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"

It's been said elsewhere in here but I'm going to parrot because this caught me by surprise and this is on the level of importance of the SOPA [1] craziness back in 2012. The TikTok ban has very little do with TikTok. It's yet another Patriot Act (now, the Restrict Act [2]) style back door to slip in some seriously heinous legislation that could find you fined to the tune of millions, or worse, thrown in jail for 20 years. > A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. I do view TikTok as a covert military campaign (ideological subversion) and do think it should be limited in the West, however, not via this bill. [1] ▶ this video [2] link

> Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Mozilla, Reddit, PayPal, Twitter, and scores of smaller tech companies went into battle mode to oppose SOPA and PIPA. This author is getting some basic points wrong in this section that force me to reserve judgment on the entire article. (Unfortunate, since I think it's a great idea for journalists to do the hard work of checking up on orgs like EFF in a broad critique like this.) Aaron Swartz was the one who went into battle mode to oppose these bills, starting with COICA in September 2010. Aaron's own speech on the subject: "Now if you've been reading the press you probably didn't hear this part of the story. As Hollywood has been telling it, the 'Great Good Copyright Bill' they were pushing was stopped by the evil internet companies who make millions of dollars off of copyright infringement. But it just really wasn't true. I mean, I was in there-- in the meetings with the internet companies. (Actually probably all here today.) And if all their profits depended on copyright infringement they would have put a lot more money into changing copyright law. The fact is, the bigger internet companies-- they would do just fine if this bill passed. I mean, they wouldn't be thrilled about it, but I doubt they would even have a noticeable dip in their stock price. "So they were against it, but they were against it like the rest of us on grounds primarily of principle. And principle doesn't have a lot of money in the budget to spend on lobbyists. "So th

I have a difficult time accepting that as a narrative for what happened to prevent SOPA from becoming law, and am not sure what the implications are for the constellation of topics surrounding privacy and secretive agencies compelling cooperation. To start of with, (1) I don't think that Google et al were intimidated by users' potential wrath in the face of SOPA passing, and (2) do not think that lobbyists countering those in favor of the legislation had any notable effect. To the first part, few people said they were threatening to boycott Google or Facebook, and their threats would not have been credible. Additionally, the list of companies who eventually came out against SOPA do not spend very much on lobbying. SOPA might have been a help to incumbent market participants, because while it would have been feasible for them to implement protections, it would have been an enormous barrier to entry for any new competitors based on user-generated content. So, I agree that it is surprising that they eventually came out against SOPA, and that it may have been for the sake of public relations as much as for sincere ideological compatibility. And yet, still, many of the most powerful lobbies have influence through the large number of members who follow through when the group decides to send letters expressing outrage about some pet issue as much as from financial power, which is ultimately used for financing ads in attempt to influence people's votes. Anyway, I'd encourage people t

I agree, though other petitions can be effective. If you care about a cause, place your signature on a petition hosted with an organization that will tirelessly advocate for that cause. Organizations in turn live and die by their ability to gather and show support for the causes they fight. If there's anything techies should've learned from the SOPA battle, it's that it is possible to make political change when enough people speak out. If you haven't watched aaronsw's talk on stopping SOPA, it's well worth your time. ▶ this video

Many people speculated throughout the whole ordeal that this was a political prosecution [...] but Aaron actually didn't believe it was Aaron was an idealist that had some idealistic misconceptions about reality. Being an intelligent and nationally famous activist, which he was well on his way to becoming, is not something you can do without ruffling the feathers of some very powerful people. He knew it [1], but his idealism stopped him from understanding what it meant for him, personally. I'll admit I don't know much about "how Washington really works", but I wouldn't be surprised if those with such power over senators have some sway with prosecutors, as well. 1. "You don't just introduce a bill on Monday and pass it unanimously a couple of days later [...] but this time, it was going to happene [...] somehow, and the kind of thing you never see in Washington, the senators had all managed to put their personal differences aside, and come together to support one bill they were persuaded they could all live with, a bill that would censor the internet, and when I saw this, I realized, whoever behind this was good [i.e. powerful]". ▶ this video

> But back to civil disobedience. Swartz stole the material, pure and simple, and he seems to feel that he and others have, in this case, the right to steal because they are beholden to a higher moral standard. I am sort of fine with this if he’s willing to accept the consequences, as Ellsberg and the Civil Rights activists were. This argument has been used to discredit Aaron as an activist, and at worst, to paint him as a spoiled sissy. But I'm not so sure that Aaron should be judged as a civil rights activist because I don't think he intended to promote his cause with civil disobedience. Instead, I think Aaron seemed to care more about the successful dissemination of the information, with attention to his cause being the secondary objective . Or else why would he engage in such subterfuge to download from JSTOR, when he very well could've just walked into the MIT Library, shouted "FOR FREEDOM!" as he flipped on an AlienWare laptop and the scraper script? He masked his face, hid his laptop in the closet, because he wanted to actually get the data and disseminate it ...the information itself was the greater good, it seems. Unlike MLK Jr., who wanted to get arrested to bring attention to the plight of minorities, getting arrested would prevent Aaron from actually distributing the academic information. Ironically, if Aaron had acted like a MLK Jr. of Information Rights, people would be ripping on him as a showboat. One of the interesting anecdotes that came from his memorial wa

A lot of uniformed people in this thread. You can't generalise as much as you all do. You have to understand that people experience life in very different ways. I have experienced depression [0] but I can't speak for anybody else other than to say I know it's hard and keep on . The real problem with depression is that everybody wants to wash their hands of it. "There are doctors that we can pass these sick people to. The system will sort everything out. That guy's a real downer, I hope he get's help... from somebody else..." I understand that it can be a mood-ruiner and people feel ashamed of it even by association but where is the strength in ignoring things? Compassion would truly be helpful and if you can give it, give it. Go for CBT and you'll find it largely amounts to filling out forms on your mental state with tickboxes that don't really apply to you, while somebody tries to find out ways that your thinking is twisted. But you can be rational, successful, positive and still feel awful. Do you want to medicate the hell out of the high-functioning, positive guy that wants to change the world [1]? The term 'chemical imbalance' sometimes gets thrown around, and honestly it's probably wrong but there is a truth to it -- often the people that say they have a chemical imbalance are thinking quite rationally but facing terrible emotions that they know they shouldn't have to (from trauma, or an unhealthy subconscious.) [0] link [1] ▶ this video edit; If you're going to downvote me

So the alternative is to do nothing? Which is better? At least this gets some momentum going, hopefully being picked up by press, maybe even them questioning the president about it at some later interview. Doing nothing means nothing will get done. This is probably exactly what the government would like you to do. "The people rose up and caused a sea change in Washington" ~ Aaron Swartz This last part of his speech is so powerful. ▶ this video