For Online Protests, Throwing Spaghetti Against the Internet

The World Wide Web is still learning how to stage protests online, with people and companies trying different tactics, throwing spaghetti against the Internet and trying to see what sticks. The reaction from the Web on Jan 18 to two separate bills in Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, seems to have pushed the online protesting experiment a little further.

Some of the reactions were borrowed from revolutions in the Middle East last year, when people changed their Twitter avatars to the color green to show support for the cause. This visual gesture seems to be borrowed from the physical badges people used to pin to a jacket or bag to protest wars and support causes in the past. Hunter Walk, an early employee at Google, acting on his own accord, set up a Web site called #BlackoutSOPA, which allowed people to easily change their Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus avatars, adding banners to the bottom of their photos that proclaim: “STOP SOPA.” Since the site was introduced earlier this month, more than 73,000 people had chosen to change their avatars. As a result, based on the number of followers these people have, more than 53 million people on Twitter and more than nine million Facebook users will potentially see these virtual protest badges.