It’s been a fascinating and tumultuous week surrounding SOPA/PIPA. I wanted to wait a few days to write again to let things unfold and to reflect on all of the events. So here’s a general list of the events:
Week leading up to Jan 18, the planned Internet protest against SOPA/PIPA
- Companies announcing they would take their sites down for 12/24 hours
January 14, 2012
- President Obama announces he won’t support SOPA
January 17, 2012
January 18, 2012
- Wikipedia is down. Reddit, WordPress and thousands of other sites are down
- Wikipedia says it received 162M site visits, 8 million of which in the U.S.
- Google said their Anti-SOPA page received 13M page views and 7M petition signatures
- Close to 1,000 people protest in New York City in Midtown Manhattan & protests in San Francisco
January 19, 2012
- MegaUpload file-sharing service is shut down and the owners are indicted
- Anonymous takes down government websites in relatiation
January 20, 2012
January 21, 2012
- Petition is created to investigate bribery of politicians by former Sentator and CEO of the MPAA Chris Dodd due to his remarks on Fox News (10,430 have signed at the time of writing this)
Last week, Mark W. Schaefer wrote an excellent blog post about the herd mentality concerning SOPA/PIPA. He posited that SOPA had become a meme in which folks less familiar with the subject played follow the leader with their stance. I largely agreed with other parts of the post but at that time, I really hadn’t seen the ‘herd mentality’ that Mark had seen.
When January 18 came around and friends were updating their Facebook status,’ the herd mentality immediately became apparent. Mark, you were right! Suddenly everyone was against SOPA because Google and Wikipedia said so. While the bandwagoners decided to join the right side imho, to Mark’s point, the problem was that people were choosing sides without educating themselves first. On the flip side, many politicians are guilty of herd mentality too; many pro-SOPA politicians switched sides throughout the day of the protest. Of course living in the “Windy City,” I fully understand there were other factors influencing the stances of politicians…
There’s another problem with herd mentality, especially in the case of SOPA/PIPA. So everyone that jumped on board, more or less has some knowledge of the issue, but how much do they understand? The question I have now is: With all the “new” opponents, how many of them are actually against piracy. Remember, we still don’t like piracy — it’s just that these bills are horribly written — that’s why we’re fighting.
So the million dollar question is: How do you inform an entire country of an issue that directly affects them when mass-media won’t report on it? Possible answer below.
There’s one incredible update from the land of Reddit: A newly formed Political Action Committee (Reddit PAC). I came out of a two-year posting hiatus just to thank the original poster!
Here’s from the new and temporary website (currently being designed):
Over the past half a decade, Reddit has gained fame for being one of the most positive and influential groups on the internet. Together, we have raised money for disaster relief programs, paid for peoples’ medical bills, and even forced a large corporation to change its stance on a threatening bill.
Now, Test PAC is here to serve as the hand that “does it” every time there is a post beginning with the words “why don’t we…” Want to put out an ad calling for Sean Hannity to be water-boarded? Want to put Redditors in Congress? Want to depose Paul Ryan? Reddit’s user-base now has the power to do this, or virtually anything else it puts its mind to, in a legal and safe manner through Test PAC.
And we’re only on Step 1.
Here’s a link to the /rpac sub-reddit
Below is the original post:
Please read this entire post, as well as the comments section, before posting a criticism of this project. I may have addressed it already.
In the past several months, there have been a number of threads on Reddit calling for the formation of a Reddit PAC. These threads are often met with optimism, support, and wonder. Just as often, they are met with criticisms and cynicism.
In December, using feedback from these threads, I started paperwork to form a Reddit PAC. And I’m done. We have one.
Test Pac, Please Ignore is a section 527 political organization whose primary purpose is to raise and spend money for whatever political purposes you want.
Together, we can now:
- Air political advertisements on television
- Donate money directly to political campaigns and other PACs
- Do lots of paperwork
Now, to be honest, I was a bit peeved about the recent debacle in /r/trees because here I am, in the process of putting the finishing touches on a legitimate non-profit organization, and this guy broke all of your trust. So allow me assuage your fears:
- We are registered with the Federal Government. Our tax-ID is 45-4126666 (I believe those of you on 4chan call that “dubs” or something.)
- All of our financial activity is monitored and audited by the Federal Election Commission, and every one of our expenditures will be published on fec.gov. You will see exactly where the money goes, as well as how much money we have.
- This is my SteamID, this is my personal website. If I break your trust, you are free to harass me to the ends of the Earth. If I don’t break your trust, please don’t harass me though =D
So what now? We need to (1) get money, (2) decide how to spend it, and (3) spend it. I’ll cover these three points in order.
Getting Money
There are two ways that the PAC can make money. First, we will be having monthly or quarterly fundraisers by selling products (either “pay what you want” or less than, say, $5) such as ebooks, all made/written by actual Redditors who agree to donate a portion of the proceeds to the PAC. The first fundraiser will start in about a week.The fundraisers will be posted in /r/rpac by me and I will ensure that the correct amount of proceeds are allocated to the PAC, and post proof after each fund-raiser as well as the amount we raised, for security reasons.
The PAC can also receive funds 24/7/365 via Dwolla or Piryx. It’s easier than using Paypal, and instructions are on the PAC’s donate page.
If you have a service or product you’d like to use to (1) promote your product and (2) donate at least 50% of the proceeds to the PAC, send an email to info@testpac.org.
Disclaimer: We cannot accept contributions from foreign nationals or government contractors, sorry.
Deciding on How to Spend Money
Currently, we do not have the infrastructure to decide how to allocate expenditures. Most PACs meet in a board room, have a chairman, and take a vote. Two problems. (1) We are on the internet, and (2) we currently have no voting system that is safe from 4chan or the Mitt Romney campaign gaming our voting system. For now, any of these discussions can take place in the PAC’s subreddit, /r/rpac.
When I created the PAC, I had three expenditures in mind:
1.) Donating money directly to Redditors running for political office, such as these people: Sean Closson, Dr. Michael Ham, Jeff Block, Zachary Meyer, Jonathan Wallace, Peter Marchetti, Joel Tyner, Mike Scala, and everyone else whose name I have apologetically forgotten to include here.
2.) Running political advertisements on issues Redditors are vocal about, such as SOPA/PIPA, cannabis prohibition, net neutrality, and preferential voting systems.
3.) Funding causes like Directing Democracy, which aim to educate and inform Americans on citizenship democracy, and capitalism. Democracy requires an educated and informed populace, and while some companies serve their interests by mis-educating and mis-informing, it is our duty to fight back by teaching our countrymen in a non-biased way.
Of course, this is a Democratic organization, so our expenditures are up to you, not me.
Spending Money
This is the part I’m most excited about. Rather than hiring video production teams and spending $50k on a commercial, we can hire actual Redditors to do our work. We can put a post in /r/forhire detailing the project we would like completed, ask for quotes, and give the job to Redditors.
When products are completed, we’ll post them on the official Test PAC Website and then put the ad on TV or the radio, in magazines or newspapers, or on the internet.
I see so much potential for the Reddit PAC!
What would you like to see come from this?
