MPAA says Internet blackout ‘fails to enlist big sites’

The Motion Picture Association of America, a leading supporter of the House’s controversial online piracy legislation, tweeted that the coordinated online protest against the legislation failed “to enlist big sites.”

“Internet blackout against U.S. law fails to enlist big sites,” the tweet said. The tweet linked to a Reuters article reporting that although thousands of websites have gone dark to protest the legislation, some “big tech names including Facebook and Twitter declined to participate despite their opposition.” The MPAA tweet sought to draw a distinction between some of the smaller websites that are participating in the blackout, such as reddit, Mozilla and Raw Story, and the bigger sites that chose to forgo the blackout but protested in other ways. MPAA released a letter blasting the protests as an "abuse of power" aimed at turning Web users into “corporate pawns.”