No, ‘The Day We Fight Back’ is not like the SOPA/PIPA fight. It’s a bigger challenge.

[Commentary] Internet users are protesting the National Security Agency's surveillance powers. It's being billed as a massive online event akin to Jan 18, 2012, when some of the Web's biggest destinations -- reddit, Wired, Wikipedia -- voluntarily went dark.

If the Internet activists of 2012 blacked out the Web to protest the threat of censorship under the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), Feb 11's online demonstrators are trying to do just the opposite: Shed new light on an opaque system that combs through our e-mails, phone records and other electronic data we generate on a daily basis. But while the comparison is superficially apt, protesters face the much more challenging task. In 2012, protesters were trying to stop what they viewed as a bad bill. Now they're trying to push a positive legislative agenda and they benefit significantly from the fact that the USA Freedom Act has already been introduced in Congress and has lawmaker support. They're also backed by the tech companies that have substantial lobbying power on the Hill. How the demonstrators fare could tell us a lot about the challenges of online organizing, as well as about the future of Internet protest.