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Who turned out the lights?

Apparently, black is the new black -- at least whenever you're looking to make a point in the online world.

Remember when NZ's three-strikes Copyright amendment bill was set to be passed into law? A number of Kiwi websites decided to go into "blackout" mode.

Now, in the face of the draconian measures proposed by legislation (SOPA PIPA) in the USA, there's another blackout about to take place there.

I have to ask though -- do these bits of grandstanding really work?

Those behind the NZ blackout probably like to think that their actions were instrumental in a watering-down of Section 92A of the Copyright Act -- but were they?

Indeed, has that Act even been watered down at all? Provision still exists for disconnection of an account for *alleged* misdeeds by the account-owner so it's still a potentially nasty bit of law.

And will Wikipedia's plans to blackout its site tomorrow (Wednesday US-time) really rattle the cages of those who seek to impose their idea of justice on the rest of the internet world?

I doubt it.

In fact, in the case of SOPA, it's probably a little silly -- since that bill has been declared pretty much dead in the water by the Obama administration anyway.

The inclusion of Reddit and BoingBoing won't really add much weight to the movement -- since I suspect most proponents of the bill would say "who?"

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter seems to have his head screwed on a little more firmly. He's quoted as saying "closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish" -- and he's dead right.

Now, if hundreds of thousands of websites all went black -- *that* could have an effect -- but no matter how important Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing think they are, a blackout from them will likely go totally unnoticed by most of the power-players in this game.

One thing I learned many years ago is that if you can't be sure your actions will have an effect -- don't do it.

If Wikipedia disappears for 24 hours and nobody cares then they've played their trump card to no effect. In future, when Wikipedia speaks, those in power will simply say "ha, they have no power, they are of no consequence, they have no clout -- ignore them".

One thing's for sure, proposed bad legislation such as SOPA and PIPA do need to be objected to, long before they come close to being enshrined in law by self-interested politicians and their lobbyists. Perhaps it's time we put the Net to work as a method of providing better systems for representing voters within the halls of power.

Instead of simply "going black", maybe we'd be far better advised to lobby politicians to introduce mechanisms whereby the people have a power of veto over bad law. Only by doing this can we ensure that the tyranny of self-interest doesn't over-ride the best interests and the wishes of the majority.

Of course regular readers will know where to go in order to find my proposed version of this mechanism :-)

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