In the past 48 hours there has been some criticism of tomorrow's planned web blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA. The most widely reported was Twitter CEO Dick Costolo's "that's just silly" tweet, which members of the press, eager to report a controversy, took out of context. In fact, Costolo was responding to the accusation that Twitter lacked the "cojones" to take a stand, and was clarifying his organization's view on what sort of stand was appropriate.

However, there has been some real criticism of the anti-SOPA protest. Paul Levinson thinks that "Wikipedia should not shut down on Wednesday... [they] could make the same point by putting up a page about SOPA which everyone who goes to Wikipedia would see... it is a wrongheaded, unnecessary move, and SOPA will be defeated without it."

Lauren Weinstein goes further, writing a post that advocates using splash pages instead of shutting sites down, and then later on posting this update which questions the value of the entire protest:

I might add that apart from the discussion above, history suggests that this type of protest -- likely to flood Congressional phone lines for a day or two -- is among the least effective, almost certainly to be relegated to the category of mass mailings and other directed protests. Personal letters and other unscripted communications with Congressional representatives can most definitely have a positive impact, but politicians have learned over the decades that the high volume, organized, "call your congressman" protests tend to be the least meaningful.

It is wrong to dismiss the importance of the web blackout to protest SOPA. The purpose of the protest is not merely to generate a flood of telephone calls to representatives. The purpose is to make the American people aware of the issue and of the Internet community's concerns.

It is not a coincidence that backpedalling on SOPA from Lamar Smith, Patrick Leahy, the House Majority leadership, and the Obama Administration, as well as the first in-depth television news coverage of the issue on MSNBC, came a few days before this protest. Heretofore the mainstream television news media had done almost no reporting on SOPA, and it was easy to dismiss the opponents as a small but vocal group. After the protest that will no longer be possible, so all of a sudden people are starting to distance themselves from the bills. This is a significant set of victories.

Wikipedia's participation is hugely important as it is one of the most prominent sites that chose to participate, and it reflects a communi... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills.

Wikipedia’s community calls for anti-SOPA blackout January 18 — Wikimedia blog

Rhino trucks, narco tanks, Mad Mex-inismos? No one can agree on what to call the armored monster vehicles that Mexican criminal groups have been welding together in recent months, but this much is clear — they are building more of them.

Mexican Drug Gangs Building More Monster Trucks - NYTimes.com

A pair of bills that would strengthen antipiracy laws — and that could essentially censor the Internet, according to heavyweights like Google — have received scant coverage from the major television networks. The parent companies of the TV networks are among the chief supporters of the bills, having lobbied Congress to write them in the first place.

Those two facts, taken together, have caused conspiracy theories to flourish online about corporate interference in news coverage.

Chris Hayes and the staff of his show on MSNBC, “Up,” knew that when they invited Richard Cotton — the chief lawyer for NBC Universal, MSNBC’s parent company — and a prominent opponent of the bills, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com, on their Sunday morning broadcast.

MSNBC does an admirable job breaking the television news silence on SOPA. Their suppport for the bill creates visible tension in providing this coverage.

SOPA and Antipiracy Debated on MSNBC - NYTimes.com

On Jan 18th, sites will go dark to protest the internet censorship bills.

MemeStreams will be joining the strike on January 18th.

STRIKE AGAINST SOPA

Attitudes are softer when asking whether ISPs should “block access to sites that provide access to pirated songs and videos.” A 58% majority responded yes to this question, with 36% opposed.  When asked if the government should block access, that majority vanishes (40% yes; 56% no).

The Copy Culture Survey: Infringement and Enforcement in the US | Media Piracy | The American Assembly

The documents reveal that the agency is tracking media stories that "reflect adversely" on DHS or the U.S. government. One tracking report -- "Residents Voice Opposition Over Possible Plan to Bring Guantanamo Detainees to Local Prison-Standish MI" -- summarizes dissent on blogs and social networking cites, quoting commenters.

EPIC - EPIC - FOIA Documents Reveal Homeland Security is Monitoring Political Dissent

Companies from General Electric Co. (GE) to yogurt producer Chobani are adding U.S. workers, accelerating a rebound in hiring, as chief executive officers prepare for greater demand in a strengthening economic recovery...

“The next few years are going to be a different picture than what we saw in the last few,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO and founder of South Edmeston, New York-based Chobani...

“It would be a stretch to say we would be able to recover to pre-recession levels by anywhere before the middle of the decade,” said Rankin, who predicts the unemployment rate will end this year at 8.2 percent or 8.3 percent.

This sounds like good news.

Hiring Logjam Breaks as CEOs Plan Growth - Bloomberg

This isn't a matter of simply weighing the concerns of one set of lobbyists against those of another, but using a standard of care and independent judgment about what is best for our society.

If Congress isn't knowledgeable enough to make that determination, they need to be consulting independent experts, not lobbyists for one side or the other.

Congress needs to act the same way, doing deep thinking and research about which policy approaches will best serve our country, rather than simply trying to balance the requests of various interest groups without regard to what is right.

I like these thoughts from Tim O'Reilly. However, I don't think that our government has enough mechanisms that provide for independent policy analysis. I've recently been thinking that working on this problem may be more important that either campaign finance reform or electoral reform.

All the think tanks are partisan and most of the heavy lifting in federal policy is done by the lobbyists who are paid by the special interests to hold particular opinions. I don't think we know how to define and fund something independent.

Perhaps, these things ought to be funded by tax dollars. Ironically, the answer might be to pay Congress and Senate offices more - allow them to expand their staffs and pay their staffers better, so that they can spend more time analyzing legislative proposals and aren't as beholden to the financial opportunities that wait for them in the lobbying community after their time in Congress. If they represent us, perhaps we should pay them more, so that they are less reliant on lobbyists to get things done.

Paying Congressmen more in order to reduce corruption is a radical idea. I'm not sure its right, and I even if I was, I'm not sure people would buy it.

Tim O'Reilly - Google+ - Further thoughts on SOPA, and why Congress shouldn't listen…

Misinformation simply can't be allowed to replace honest debate, and derail the critically important fight to protect American jobs.

The MPAA simultaneously lies with statistics to support SOPA and vaguely accuses the opposition of spreading "misinformation."

MPAA: It's Time to Stop Obstruction on Anti-Piracy Legislation (Updated) | Reuters