Funder Webinar on Internet Censorship and the SOPA-Strike Internet Blackout Campaign
On January 18, 2012 hundreds of organizations and online companies – from MoveOn.org to Wikipedia to WordPress – blacked out their websites to protest a bill in Congress known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). The bill threatened to permit government censorship of legitimate websites without due process and limited recourses for the nonprofit organizations, small businesses and individuals across the country that would have been shut out of the Internet as a result.
The Internet blackout, coupled with a team of strange bedfellows collaborating on effective online and offline strategies, generated a whopping 13 million messages and calls to Congress – and it cast a bright light on the fragile state of protections for Internet freedom.
Funders and advocates from a range of issue areas have asked how this stunning campaign was organized, and what other threats to the Internet could affect the success of advocates’ work across the social change spectrum. New research by Freedman Consulting sheds light on the campaign’s turning points, as well as upcoming challenges and opportunities. Join this call to hear highlights of the Freedman research as well as brief presentations from organizers and funders of the SOPA-Strike campaign.
This call is produced by Media Democracy Fund and co-sponsored by Funders Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP), Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media (GFEM), and International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG).
The call is for funders only and is a non-solicitation and non-partisan environment.
3 pm ET / 12 noon PT
