Adventures (in code) - Alastair Coote • Dear Tech Community, We Have A Communication Problem

Dear Tech Community, We Have A Communication Problem

Today is the big day. Wikipedia is out. Google is doodle-out. I wanted to play my part, so I headed down to the NYTM protest outside the offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. It was a fantastic sight- the turnout seems to have been huge, and the majority of people were carrying signs and placards.

Sadly, I couldn’t stay for long (indeed, the protest is still going on as I write) so my experiences should absolutely be treated as anecdotal- not a reflection of the protest as a whole. But then, that’s the exact experience a passer-by gets when walking past on their lunch break.

What I saw worried me. We’re not making the right points. Or when we are, we’re not saying them right. For example, a conversation I overheard between someone giving out flyers and a member of the public:

“So what are we all protesting?”

“SOPA and PIPA.”

“What?”

“SOPA and PIPA. It’s an anti-piracy law that…”

Argh. You’re using a SOPA-supporter talking point, then disagreeing with it. But it’s too late, you’ve already lost him- because who wouldn’t be in favour of an anti-piracy law? Despite the way they’ve been framed (and named), SOPA and PIPA are not anti-piracy laws. They are laws that will allow the government to control your access to the internet. That is what we need to be communicating- not what the law is intended to do, but what it will actually do.

Meanwhile, the speaker at the front was describing how “Hollywood is trying to prop up their broken business model so that they can buy themselves Porches for a few more years”. Also not good- if you were just wandering past you might think it was a rant about wealth distribution. We should be focusing on:

We are a success.
The tech industry is one of the few economic bright spots in the country right now. It’s a tired phrase, but we are job creators.
We- the job creators- are fighting against intrusive government regulation.
The proposed laws would add a huge administrative burden upon tech companies, and could drive them out of business. People would lose their jobs. (You’d think every Republican Presidential candidate would be falling over themselves to endorse us, wouldn’t you? Strange, that…)
We are anti-piracy.
Piracy is a legitimate problem, and the internet is an enabler of it. There are existing provisions that work very well (DMCA) and we are open to discussing whether further measures are appropriate. But SOPA and PIPA go too far, and were created with zero tech consultation.
Innovation is better.
We are the people that created Netflix and Spotify- both services that have helped to dramatically reduce piracy by providing content to users in a form they are willing to pay for. We are innovative, but SOPA and PIPA will dramatically restrict our ability to continue to be innovative in the future.

This has the potential to be a huge milestone in activism within the tech industry. We’re coming of age. Today’s blackouts have shown that we are full of will, but we need to have the same razor-sharp focus around messaging that older industries have developed. If we’re not careful this is going to be portrayed as “tech companies want to make money from piracy”, and it’ll all be for nothing.

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t wish to write off the protest as meaningless. Seeing that many people out protesting for our cause was fantastic. I just want to make sure we do this right.