Jump to content

English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout/Quotes

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Great quotes about the blackout. See also English Wikipedia SOPA blackout/Media

January 18

[edit]
  • "This has been a real learning experience for the content world" -- John P. Feehery, a former Republican leadership aide and executive at the motion picture lobby, as reported [1]
  • "My Internet is broken today. Hitting that “all known thought” button on my toolbar gives me a quick, maddening glimpse of Wikipedia that is then overtaken by a black screen that asks me to “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” I just did and I didn’t like it, now can I have my Wikipedia back?" -- David Carr
  • "This is the first real test of the political strength of the Web, and regardless of how things go, they are no longer a pushover. The Web taking a stand against one of the most powerful lobbyers and seeming to get somewhere is definitely a first." - Tim Wu, Columbia Law School professor, speaking to the New York Times
  • "[Under SOPA/PIPA,) every one of those sites would have to take steps to prevent publishers, which is to say people, which is to say you, from helping anyone find out about the existence of sites the US media firms don't like. And since the law doesn't require a private company to provide any advance notice before the blacklisting, these sites will be forced to spy on their users, in advance and all the time, to make sure you are not talking about sites media firms in the US do not want you to talk about, even if you are not a US citizen. Sopa and Pipa are, quite simply, an attempt to create a privatised form of international censorship, and because the censorship would have to be nearly total to be effective, they would have a profound and chilling effect on any form of public conversation among ordinary citizens. It would render the internet a place where the only content to be seen or heard or read is produced by professionals, with the rest of us relegated to the role of pure consumption." Clay Shirky, writing in the Guardian

January 19

[edit]

Quotes from US elected officials

[edit]

Sources: https://twitter.com/presroi, ProPublica feed of full official lines and an summarized version of those [lines

References

[edit]
  1. "Dodd Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet". The New York Times. January 19, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012.