Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, the Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists, and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet

by David Segal, Patrick Ruffini

  Clearly the Internet can serve as a means for advancing liberty only to the extent it remains relatively free (at least in many countries) of government regulation. American politicians condemn foreign governments like China for restricting access to the Internet, yet many of those same politicians support increased government control of the Internet here in America.

  Indeed, important media and political figures in the U.S. (such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) frequently bemoan the Internet’s “lack of a gatekeeper.” University of Chicago law professor and former Obama Administration “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein has suggested that the federal government create an office to debunk “conspiracy” theories on the Internet. Former President Bill Clinton, that champion of honesty, has even suggested the creation of an entirely new cabinet department devoted to “fact checking” the Internet!

  These proposals are done in the name of preventing the spread of factual errors, misinformation, and “conspiracy theories.” It is not too difficult to imagine how various government agencies might want to use the state’s vast resources to control what ordinary citizens say and do online. It is in their interest to stand on the Internet’s metaphorical street corner and tell the American people, “Move along, nothing to see here.”

  For example, some Pentagon officials might want to discredit those sharing information about how the American public were misled into believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might seek to prevent exposing the role of the Federal Reserve in bailing out up both American and European banks. Some supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”) might want the government’s fact checkers to discredit those who expose how the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance lobby provided sought to enrich themselves by supporting the bill. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize a propaganda machine designed to keep them from knowing the truth about their government.

  Proposals to use the power of the government to discredit and marginalize those who use the Internet to disseminate information are not the only threat to Internet freedom. Some of the biggest threats come in the form of legislation ostensibly designed to protect intellectual property rights or thwart cyberterrorism.

  In 2012 Congress considered two such measures, namely the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). SOPA allegedly was justified by the need to stop intentional piracy of intellectual property such as movies and videos. This bill achieved its goal by forcing website owners to act as government agents and allowing the government—oftentimes at the behest of politically-powerful corporations—to shut down entire websites if merely one single user was found to have improperly posted copyrighted material. Thus, the millions of Americans who use sites like Facebook or YouTube could have been denied access to these sites because someone, perhaps inadvertently, posted a film clip in violation of a copyright.

  The potential for abuse of this power is obvious. Regardless of where one stands on the question of whether protecting intellectual property is a legitimate function of the government, I am sure everyone agrees that the federal government should abide by the constitutional limits on federal power and not disregard or abuse the First and Fourth Amendments.

  Fortunately, grassroots activists, aided by Internet companies who would be affected by SOPA, organized one of the largest campaigns opposing a bill that I have ever seen in my time in office. Congressional offices were buried under a sea of angry emails and phone calls, and the legislation was pulled from the congressional calendar.

  Unfortunately, a few months after the victory over SOPA, the House passed CISPA. CISPA gave the federal government new powers to monitor online communications without a warrant as long as the monitoring was done in the name of “cyber security.” Unfortunately, many of the same corporations who opposed SOPA favored CISPA. Why? In large part they supported the bill because it provided them protections from being held accountable when they violate their consumer’s privacy at the behest of the government. So while Internet activists could influence the political process to prevent SOPA, CISPA demonstrated that corporatism and lobbying still rule Washington D.C.

  As of this writing, it appears that the House and Senate will not agree on a final version of CISPA this year. However, the Obama administration seems ready to impose provision of this bill by executive order.

  Another threat to Internet freedom is the possibility that freedom of expression may be curtailed in the name of cracking down on “hate speech” or pornography. This is a very dangerous mentality, shared by many on both the political right and left who alternatively seek to legislate morality or enforce political correctness with force. But I believe giving the government power to censor any form of government speech will lead to censorship of all forms of speech. Therefore we cannot allow our strong moral objections to pornography or speech that degrades other human beings to serve as justification for government censorship of any form of Internet speech.

  Supporters of Internet freedom must also engage in the battle to restore the right of adults to gamble on the Internet. Like all forms of prohibition, the ban on Internet gambling will not succeed in preventing gambling. Instead such a ban simply ensures that organized crime or offshore operations fill the void and run online gambling businesses. Rest assured that the supposed need to protect gamblers from themselves will be used to justify ever more stringent police state controls on everyone’s Internet activity.

  The past five years have seen an explosion in the liberty movement, fueled in large part by the Internet. Preserving that freedom is crucial if the liberty movement is to continue its progress. Therefore, all activists in the liberty movement have a stake in the battle for Internet freedom. We must be ready to come together to fight any attempt to increase government’s power over the Internet, regardless of the supposed justifications. Copyright protection, pornography, “conspiracy theories,” gambling, and “hate speech” are merely excuses for doing what all governments have done throughout human history: increase their size, scope, and power.

  My organization, Campaign for Liberty, is going to make Internet freedom a key issue in its grassroots efforts over the next several years. I hope those who realize the critical importance of Internet freedom will consider joining Campaign for Liberty and taking up the battle against government control over the free flow of online information.

  A CASE FOR DIGITAL ACTIVISM BY ARTISTS

  ERIN MCKEOWN

  After eight records, three EPs, and 12 years of touring the globe non-stop, Erin McKeown is just getting warmed up. Over the last decade, Erin has spent an average of two hundred nights onstage each year. She has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Later with Jools Holland, NPR, BBC, and has had her music placed in numerous films, television shows, and commercials. In the last several years, McKeown has launched a successful side-career as a political activist, lobbying regularly on Capitol Hill in an effort to connect the worlds of policy, music, and technology. Her anti-SOPA video may be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da-XkA6746U

  As a songwriter, I get asked all the time, “which comes first, the words or the music?” In twenty plus years of writing, I’ve never found a predictable pattern in my creativity. My friends who are also writers say the same. You never know, until you just know. You constantly labor, trying out many ideas, and then, there comes a moment when the ideas stick together and become inextricable. Something ignites, and a song comes into being. It is a singular thrill.

  I think the defeat of SOPA/PIPA was a similar, singular moment when the many strands of Internet culture (the geeks, the critics, the creators, the users) all lifted their heads out of their respective sandboxes, became inextricable, and spoke with a unified voice: “NO.” I’ll go ahead and say it: the defeat of SOPA/ PIPA was a moment when the words and the music arrived at the same time, and you just knew. It was absolutely thrilling to be a part of.


  Now, post-thrill and pre-next battle, I would like to make a case for digital activism by artists.

  When I started my career in the late ’90s, I kept my political self separate from my musical self. I feared writing terrible, un-musical work that was bogged down with a message. I was trying to connect to the more established music industry, and I feared alienating anyone in my search for the widest possible audience.

  However, as time went on and I became less and less concerned with participating in a music business that was rapidly crumbling anyway, I began to narrow that gap between my political self and my musical self. It was tiring to maintain, and I was burnt out on the ego-centric business of promoting myself constantly. There had to be a better reason to be a musician than just talking about yourself all the time.

  I began by practicing the vocabulary of activism. Could I simply talk about what I believed? I remember being on Rachel Maddow’s radio show in the mid 2000s and trying to desperately to keep up with her as she articulated her views on issues and policies I cared about as well.

  “I’ve got to get better at this,” I thought.

  I looked to other artists whose political work I admired, and I learned by watching their skills. Slowly I gained confidence; I began to find my own voice; and I began to move toward actions.

  For a long time, it’s been a cliché about artists that we don’t know what’s going on beyond whatever drug or show is right in front of us. Sometimes this cliché has had truth behind it. Sometimes artists have been willing participants in a tacit agreement to leave the art to the artist and the business to the business owners.

  But sometimes artists have been unwilling participants in this agreement too, forced by all kinds of pressures to agree to contracts and situations that keep people with money and power rolling in their own, continued money and power. And there are a great many artists who take enormous pride in paying attention to what is happening around them and to them. Some of us refuse to shut up and sing. It is my experience that the more you engage with the world around you, the better your art is for it.

  Here’s this word again: inextricable. As an artist, I find I am inextricable from the Internet. It is my instrument, my storefront, my megaphone, my audience, and my distributor. Thus I have found it is also the perfect arena for my activist self. It is a pipeline to get at the social justice work that matters most to me: access, participation, finding solutions to structural inequalities. As a visual / textual / auditory medium, it’s right in my wheelhouse as a creator. In my activism, I get to play with the Internet.

  Artists are uniquely built for this sort of thing. This is what we do. The Internet is both our cause and the toolbox to fight for it.

  So much gets said about how the Internet offers endless freedom for the artist. There is a mistaken belief that somehow, left to its own devices, the Internet levels the playing field between the haves and the have nots. Another myth: In the paradise of infinite storage, there is infinite attention to be paid even the smallest artist. Yet, it’s been my experience that the Internet is still subject to the same pressures as any other venue for expression. People with money and power will always want to keep their money and power.

  However, for the artist the Internet does offer a pathway to change in that it is not done growing; it is not done evolving; and in its growth spurts, artists do have a unique opportunity to disrupt and push back at some of the usual suspects.

  One of the main victories of the fight against SOPA/PIPA was the realization by many artists that they are also copyright holders, and that the Internet offers them an opportunity to exercise these rights however they choose. The work around SOPA/PIPA showed the world that copyright holders are not necessarily large media companies.

  Instead, copyright holders are a diverse group that will not all make the same decisions on how to manage their rights.

  Many artists understood, perhaps for the first time, that being a copyright holder doesn’t mean you want to or have to wall your art off and make people pay for entry. It simply means you are the one that gets to make the choice about what you want to do with your art. There is a vast world between “sue your pants off” and “everything is free.”

  Lest we lapse into too much self-congratulation, there is much work to do. I have no doubt that the folks that brought forth SOPA/PIPA will try once again to restrict Internet freedom in order to maintain their own profit margins. As artists, we must speak to each other about this way of framing the rights of creators. It is a pathway to increased creativity, collaboration, and income. It is my personal mission to recruit more and more artists for this fight. And we will make you look and listen to our activism in ways that will be thoughtful, playful, artistic, and engaged. Words and music, inextricable.

  ON THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE

  BRAD BURNHAM

  Brad Burnham is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, an investment firm based out of New York City. Before USV, Burnham began work for AT&T in 1979 and oversaw a number of successful mergers and investments. As an active member of the information technology community, Burnham used his knowledge to fight against the passage of SOPA and PIPA. He made appearances on TV talk shows, Internet media, and social forums where he advocated against the bills. Burnham currently serves on the boards of a number of popular social media and networking sites, such as Tumblr, Stack Exchange, and others. This essay is adapted from a talk he gave at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

  I started working in technology 30 years ago and for most of that time thought that the work I did had very little to do with policy. Back then, I was either building or investing in the technology infrastructure that became the foundation for the Internet. In the last several years, however, the investment opportunity has shifted from infrastructure to the applications and services that ride on top of that infrastructure. All of a sudden, every policy decision made in Washington impacts our work. Many impinge on what I believe is a core freedom: the freedom to innovate.

  I want to spend a few minutes tonight sharing my view of how that happened, and what it means to our economy and our society going forward.

  At Union Square Ventures, we invest in networks. We were the first institutional investor in Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter. We have also invested in many other less familiar networks in markets like education, employment, and finance. As we spend time with these networks, we learn more and more about their extraordinary economics.

  They are easy to bootstrap, create remarkable efficiencies, optimize the value of scarce resources, and cost very little to promote.

  Like most of these networks, Foursquare was built on open source software and its services are delivered over the Internet. They were able to grow to over one hundred thousand users on less than $25,000. Craigslist radically reduced the cost of classified advertising. They replaced the call centers, printing presses, trucks and trees that used to be necessary to alert the world that you wanted to sell your couch—with a digital photo and a drop-dead simple electronic posting mechanism. Airbnb has re-invented the way travelers are matched with beds, and in the process enabled hundreds of thousands of people around the world to capture the value in their spare bedroom.

  Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare spend little or nothing to acquire new users or to propagate a new feature. We hear a lot about viral marketing but I did not internalize its implications until I watched David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, introduce a new feature: by hiding it.

  When I was an entrepreneur in the software business we spent a ton of money and time to introduce a new feature. We did analyst tours, issued press releases, threw parties, and bought billboards to promote a new feature. David hides it. But then he sends an email to a few popular bloggers and tells them if they mouse over this one section of the site, they will see a drop down menu with a couple of new capabilities. He encourages them to play with the features but asks them not to tell too many people about it because he is not committed to releasing it gener
ally.

  So they use the features and of course someone reading their blog sees they have done something cool and asks how they did it. Two weeks later there is a kid in Akron, Ohio, telling a kid down the street, “I am not really supposed to tell you this but if you mouse over this part of the site.” And the feature is now ubiquitous.

  These economics create enormous opportunity. The combination of low costs, cheap capital and relatively free access to markets has created an unprecedented era of decentralized, emergent, start-up innovation. By creating novel new services and dramatically reducing the cost of existing services, that innovation has unlocked value for consumers that they are now redeploying in other new services.

  But at the same time, that process, the classic creative destruction of free market capitalism, has created new challenges for incumbent industrial companies.

  For the last 130 years the economy has been dominated by firms structured as bureaucratic hierarchies. That model worked well to mass produce products for mass consumption, but the inefficiency of communicating customer needs up through the hierarchy and management decisions back down, and the natural tendency of any organization to protect its current organization structure makes it difficult if not impossible for bureaucratic hierarchies to innovate as quickly as the emerging network-based model of decentralized innovation.

  So the incumbents who have a fiduciary duty to their share holders to maximize profits look for ways to stave off competition from networks and protect their current cost structures. Increasingly, they ask policymakers and regulators to change the rules in ways that tilt the market in their favor.

  Policymakers and regulators who have longstanding relationships with these incumbents are receptive to these requests because they are usually couched in language about the safety or security of consumers, and because there are only a few people—most of whom are in this room—who are explaining the risks of these proposed policies and regulations.