Blackout in protest against draconian law: why the reticence?
From 28 February a law in New Zealand will require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disconnect from the internet anyone accused of copyright infringement. The law won’t require convictions or even evidence: an accusation will be enough. Yet it seems that unsullied enjoyment of Twitter is more important to people.
Perhaps it’s different in New Zealand at the moment, but in the UK (for me at least) the internet is a fundamental part of my social and professional existence. Cutting me off from it would be tantamount to putting me in prison.
This law seems draconian, and could set a dangerous precedent.
So a campaign has been launched encouraging people to voice their protest. Part of this is a blackout of online profiles. Sadly though, people seem reluctant to participate.
I won’t give examples of theoretical applications of this law because there are plenty of examples here, but I’m pretty sure that were this to be brought in the UK there would be a huge outcry among the social media crowd here. So why the reticence now?
Yes, it will be a little inconvenient for a few days, and I know that some Twitter clients will be more difficult to use. But it is only a few days, and there are other clients. Besides, I used Twitter on my mobile for months without avatars at all, and had no problems identifying people by their names alone.
I also don’t agree that adding our voice from the UK is the same as the Guardian newspaper ‘interfering’ with the US Presidential election in 2004. Internet trends are bigger than one country, even if that country doesn’t realise it’s starting them. But, more significantly, this campaign has begun in New Zealand; it’s homegrown: New Zealanders are asking for support rather than being told they need it.
Have we really become so apathetic that a few days of less convenient Twittering is too much to bear compared with making a stand against the erosion of rights? Or are we so used to outrageous laws being foisted upon us – such as the one that could now make it illegal to photograph police in the UK – that we’ve become numb to them?
So I ask again: why the reluctance to join the protest? For it to have any impact it must be visible. That means that Twitter must look as black as possible, to give the strongest visual effect: not half-black avatars – sorry Jon 
– but fully black ones, so that Twitter streams are obvious in their objections.
Important people are looking at Twitter: MPs, celebrities, press officers (don’t underestimate the power of the press office; even Downing Street’s watching, remember). So there is an audience. Surely it’s worth a few days of minor inconvenience?
I agree that this protest is unlikely to change the course of events in New Zealand, but it might just make other legislators think twice. By not saying anything we simply consent to that sort of behaviour: and, more importantly perhaps, to the misguided understanding of how important online activity is becoming to everyday life.
Update
Having looked back at Twitter now I see some quite effective semi-blackouts, which differentiate the avatars and would also contribute to the visual effect mentioned above.
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This has got me thinking about those online campaigns which have had some effect. Shirky (yes, him again) has some examples and they generally boil down to something where the least amount of effort by the protesters caused the most amount of trouble for the evildoers. Take, for example, the case of HSBC withdrawing free overdrafts for student accounts during summer holidays. The protest simply involved joining a Facebook group and HSBC caved before any actual “action” took place. Zero interference to the student’s lives meant a massively high participation.
What’s being asked here is something different. we’re effectively going on Twitter with bags over our heads and while, yes, you can use Twitter by reading the names I think many of us use the icons as a way to visually filter the stream. I know I look out for icons of good friends or those who often give high value tweetage. Suddenly that’s gone.
It’s not a big thing but it’s still a thing which raises the barrier to entry. You need to make a commitment to join in. A commitment is not a bad thing, and there should be ways for people to make the effort (be it writing to press / politicians / tourist boards, etc) but there also needs to be a zero-effort, zero-disruption way to protest to surround that.
So, in conclusion, I think the full blackout icon thing was a bit much. (I also had big issues with the UK text message campaign and that darned pseudo-Manga thing that made everybody look the same). Better would be a tool which took people’s existing icons and overlayed them with “s92a” or something. That would give a uniformity to the protest while letting us get on with Twitter as usual.
As usual, Pete, I think you’re probably right! I did add an ‘update’ to the end of the post about the darkened avatars, because they do seem quite a good compromise.
I am now pleased with my halfway house black out avatar (and with the fact that others are doing it too making Tweetdeck easier to use). If @bounder hadn’t have come up with that I’d have carried on as I was, even though I do believe in this cause.
As I mentioned on Twitter, I felt that as long as the protest was affecting usability of Twitter, it was self defeating: the only people we are inconveniencing through this action is ourselves.
Avatar’s are a key way of me reading and making sense of Twitter, particularly when I’m having several conversations at once. Essentially it made most of my Twitter stream look like the same person was speaking all the time, with little pay off in terms of outcomes from the protest: it was like everyone going to a pub and wearing blindfolds to protest about something that some Methodists were doing.
I wasn’t sure what was going on the few times I dipped into Twitter at work today to find lots of folks with blacked-out avatars, and I didn’t have time to find out what was going on.
Since being home though, I’ve had a look at the whys and wherefores so have more of a grasp on what this is about. And I agree with the principle of the protest, that it is wrong – is ludicrous too strong a word? – to remove the internet from people without even investigation or proof of any wrongdoing (to precis quite considerably and ignoring the fundamental ‘if they infringe copyright, should someone really be banned from the entire interwebs’ thing).
Still, these things occur to me:
First up – I don’t want to be a sheep (!). I don’t want to do something because lots of people I follow have done it (and obviously feel strongly about it) without first fully understanding what it’s all about myself or I’d feel like a right bandwagon-jumper. Still, that’s a bit lame isn’t it?
So, digging a bit deeper …
I honestly wonder what good it’ll do? That sounds more confrontational than I mean it too – my point is that when I agree with something, I’m more likely to put my name to a petition or similar; something where there’s a more a permanent and measurable record of mine and other people’s opinion, all in one place; quantifiable ‘strength in numbers’ type things. How can the numbers of black avatars be measured? Isn’t it a bit transient? (Does this even matter though?! Arrgghh, I don’t know!)
I’m in no way knocking the gesture – I just can’t get it into my head that it’s terribly effective. Still, these are just my admittedly ill-thought out, fairly weary-headed intial thoughts – and as you can see from the end of the previous paragraph, I’m hugely indecisive so – feel free to convince me that I can make a difference!
Gosh in the time it took for me to write mine (with a few distractions), @peteashton put it better than I could – I should’ve kept myself to myself. Just reading back, and to clarify I only used Methodists as an example because they wouldn’t be in the pub with us, I’m not having a go at them!
The reason I’ve been taking part in this blackout is that I harbour genuine concerns something like this could happen in the UK in the not too distant future and I want to highlight this particular case to as many people as possible. The blackout, I feel, is particularly effective in that so many people have been asking what it’s all about. Granted, in itself it probably won’t alter the position of the NZ government, but at least far more people are now aware of the issue. Furthermore, it’s effective because the public images we present of ourselves, which so many people are so used to seeing, are suddenly taken away, almost like one has ‘died’ online – which is what anybody unfortunate enough to fall foul of the law in NZ would experience.
Covering only half your avatar or putting it in a shadow, to me, seems a half-arsed effort. This is only a week of blackout protest. Blacking out avatars does make it a bit more inconvenient but it’s only for a week. As I said above, it’s the sudden lack of an identifier that makes this action successful in at least as much as raising awareness. Still being able to see somebody’s eyes in their avatar doesn’t really have the same powerful effect nor cause the necessary kind of disruption required for sticking the issue firmly in people’s minds.
I do realise that for mass protests to be successful, they have to require little effort. I’ve only recently graduated from university where I was very active in the politics of the students’ union and trying to get the students to care was nigh on impossible because quite frankly most of them were too lazy. The blackout doesn’t require much effort – simply change your picture. The only effort required is in making the best of the disruption caused (such as identifying avatars rather than names) However, I firmly believe that for protests to be effective they do have to be somewhat disruptive. It’s disruption that awakens us from our happy slumber and forces us to think about serious issues in the world. Many people don’t like it, but without disrupting their cosy little existence it can be extremely hard to make them sit up and pay attention.
Hah! So it was worth it: “New Zealand’s terrible copyright law suspended, may be dead” (BoingBoing)