Reddit founder: SOPA showed democracy works

Social news website Reddit, Wikipedia and scores of other smaller websites that went dark in protest of anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA helped turn the inside-the-Beltway lobbying racket on its head, said Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The outcry from Internet users proved “that Americans actually still can dictate policy and not just lobbyists,” Ohanian said. “It’s motivating because this was a decentralized movement. Lots of people with great ideas started contributing and it started to get momentum,” Ohanian added. “This idea went viral. It’s powerful when you think we’ve now hit this critical mass. We can get a message out there that actually affects politicians.” While the Reddit team had talked behind the scenes about shutting down the website for a day in protest to the bills moving through Congress, Ohanian said it was the calls from the site’s users to take the drastic move that ultimately convinced the company to black out the site for the day. In an unprecedented move, Wikipedia and thousands of other sites participated in the blackout and Google also blocked out its colorful logo to show opposition to the bills.