“The key metric to consider for impact of this action, however, was not measured in digital terms but by civic outcomes: 40 new opponents in Congress. On Wednesday morning, according to ProPublica's SOPA Tracker, U.S. Senators and Representatives were 80-31 for SOPA and PIPA. By the end of the day, SOPA and PIPA had 68 supporters and 71 opponents in Congress. And by week's end, ProPublica's data showed 187 opponents and or ‘leaning no’ “
Of course, Google and Microsoft (both companies opposed the laws) have huge lobbying arms and are powerful in their own right. But both organizations had opposed PIPA and SOPA on the run up to the vote and had failed to stop the progress of those bills or, more importantly, secure modifications to minimize the impact on free speech and innovation. No, it clearly was the millions of geeks (or people who identify with the geeks) that effectively killed PIPA and SOPA. And this exercise of power has produced a template for political action on a massive scale fueled by social media.
Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa is vice president of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University and Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University. His other academic appointments include Harvard, Duke and Emory Universities as well as the University of California Berkeley.
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In light of the events in the Middle East last spring, this development is less than surprising. After all, Barrack Obama deployed supremely successful social media campaigns to fuel fundraising and volunteer networks for his presidential campaign. Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren is doing the same right now in Massachusetts. Clearly the role of social currency in the world of politics has been trending upwards for quite some time.
But this particular episode is both symbolic and critical for a number of other reasons.
First, a countervailing force may finally be at play to balance the impact of the Supreme Court decision making it easy for multi-million dollar SuperPACs to anonymously raise funds and lob attack ads in campaigns. The public can now use social media to have its say. These campaigns have been run before but not on the same scale and never to the same stunning overnight effect.
Second, this was the first time we have seen a widely executed collective action by Silicon Valley. So far, it has stayed out of Washington’s dirty politics. As Federated Media Publishing chairman John Battelle wrote on his blog, the Valley has realized that it “can't afford to not engage with Washington anymore ... Silicon Valley is waking up to the fact that we have to be part of the process in Washington — for too long we've treated 'Government' as damage, and we've routed around it.”
Lastly, although social media has been widely adopted, social media as a protest tools remains lodged squarely among the early adopters. Some observers framed this whole episode as a political coming-out party for geeks. But I think it’s entirely possible that as these types of political actions move into the mainstream, we will see a new and powerful vox populi that, if properly organized, can supersede the money politics that drive so much decision making inside the Beltway.
I was very proud to be an American on that day. I have often questioned the value of companies building businesses entirely around social media. But when social media can become a tool that the populace harnesses to make itself heard inside even the most insulated political echo chambers, then we know that it is indeed a powerful force for change not just in Egypt and Tunisia but also right here in America.
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