It’s been a month since the public in the US told the US Congress to kill SOPA (and its companion legislation, Protect IP). One major organizing site had 10M petition signature and 8M attempted phone calls to congress. Several others sites also reported petition signatures in the 7 figures. Several news outlets covered the meltdown in the phone lines into congress. That 8M attempted calls only counts those who looked up a congressional phone number through that one site but still translates into each Congressional office receiving a call every two seconds. That’s a mind boggling level of opposition.
Members of Congress are, if nothing else, conscious of their re-election prospects if they try to oppose widespread public opposition to legislation. The reaction was so widespread that the President came out against the legislation, major Congressional supporters switched positions, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) delayed votes on the legislation and Congress finally tabled the whole thing.
A number of analysts (both of technology news and in the general news media) noted that Activism seems to have entered a new world. A movement that can melt down the Congressional Switchboards or bring down the Libyan government can now coallesce and succeed in months without a charismatic leader or centralized control. That Twitter, Facebook are now key tools in change was picked up across the media. What may be more noteworthy is not the tools themselves but what people have realized is possible. We seem to enter a new world where networks of people (The Internet Blackout, the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement and the Anonymous collective are all examples) drive change without the need for centralized leadership or organization. If you’re interested in that thread, there’s a great article on this change by John Arquilla called The (B)end of History at Foreign Policy.