Focused protest

I want political protests to be focused. By that I mean I want them to have an obvious message and a specific demand. So when I heard about an Internet protest campaign to draw attention to the soon-to-be-implemented Section 92A of New Zealand’s copyright act, I was disappointed to find the whole thing confused, unfocused and a bit pointless. Never mind, I’m taking part in the campaign in a way that makes it more effective and pointed. More about that in a minute.

The fight over Section 92A is because it requires Internet Service Providers to terminate the Internet connection of anyone—person, school, business, library, government agency, whatever—accused of repeatedly unlawfully downloading or uploading copyright material. This is where it gets truly ugly: There's no definition of what a repeat offender is or when, exactly, ISPs are required to act. This will be a total mess until Parliament finally repeals it and replaces it with a real copyright law, since no court will be able to figure out what this law is supposed to do or how it's supposed to function.

As the clock counts down to implementation on February 28, the Creative Freedom Foundation, which is leading opposition to Section 92A, has been urging a protest campaign in which people turn their icons on Twitter, Facebook, etc., into solid black squares between now and February 23. Now, I’m all for protesting this stupid law, and I think for Internet users, protest is an especially good idea. But what, exactly, is this supposed to accomplish?

Here’s where I took matters into my own hands: I turned my icon into the black square protest sign accompanying this post. This way anyone seeing it will know what it’s all about and can follow the web address to find out more. By the way, anyone is free to use the icon, as one Twitter buddy is already. At midnight on Monday, February 23, I’m going to post a simple black rectangle in place of a regular post. That will be my only post that day.

I chose February 23 because the protest graphic at the upper right of this blog implies that February 23 is THE day of protest, so I decided to just go with it. By the way, I had to modify the code to make that banner fit on this blog; if you’d like this smaller version for your site just email me and I’ll send the code to you.

The right-wing National Business Review, in a report critical of the law's critics, reported that the new Attorney General, Chris Finlayson, has announced he’ll let the law take effect and wait and see what happens. This is despite his saying as an Opposition MP last April, "I think this bill is very much a patch-up job and very much what I would call third-rate law reform legislation." Now he has the opportunity to fix it, but he won’t.

This story is far from over, and no amount of icon blackening is likely to change that. Still, protest for its own sake is legitimate—just as long as it's focused.

Related link:

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPANZ) statment