Operation Black March and Reasons I will not participate

Early this month, there is a new movement by the hacktivist organization called Anonymous that calls for everyone to boycott all forms of media in response to acts such as SOPA/PIPA/ACTA being supported by media companies. It seems ambitious, but I feel it’s not going to work and its counter intuitive. For boycotts to be effective, everyone have to do it in order to become effective. For recent examples, people moving away from Godaddy in response of SOPA and Bank Transfer Day over ridiculous bank fees on debit cards.

However, boycotting all forms of media for one month and delaying it to April will just defeat the whole purpose similarly to the supposed gas boycotts of last year. Believe me, it won’t hurt the big media companies since they have other ways of making money. They will only boast about the profit increases in April when the boycotts end. Instead, it will hurt independent creators and small businesses who most likely won’t support these legislation. Second of all, media is all over the place and is hard to ignore. Unless you stay inside an empty room all day without internet and television, chances of you getting bombarded with media is rather high.

If you want to fight against this legislation, you should be doing the following instead

• Selectively Boycott companies that still support SOPA/PIPA and write a letter to them as Maddox suggested on his site. Instead of hurting companies that don’t support this legislation, just punish those who still support it and tell them that you won’t buy any of their products until they change their mind.
• Contact and meet your Congressman/woman in person. If they still support this legislation, arrange a meeting or call them so you can voice your opposition against these acts.If you in the EU, contact your country’s officials.
• If the above fails, just vote them out of office in the next election.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m against these acts like everyone else because it undermines freedom of speech and employs censorship. However, I feel that this isn’t the effective way to get your voice heard.