A timeline of how SOPA and PIPA went from seeming inevitable to sparking mass protest and unprecedented activism from internet organizations and web companies.
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May 12, 2011
Protect IP Act and Commercial Felony Streaming Act (Bieber bill) introduced in Senate.
Overwhelming initial support: 40 co-sponsors, 11 at time of introduction
www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show
www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s978/show
May 26, 2011
Protect IP Act passes Senate Judiciary Committee by unanimous voice vote.
Mark-up session is 7 minutes long and no amendments are debated.
Bill is placed on Senate calendar.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) immediately announces opposition
June 16, 2011
Commercial Felony Streaming Act is passed by Judiciary Committee by unanimous voice vote.
June 30, 2011
Gamer community recognizes the broad implications the felony streaming provisions in S. 978 (which later became part of SOPA).
Videos by gamers are increasingly posted on YouTube.
A Demand Progress call to action gains attention.
October 19, 2011
FreeBieber.org launches against the felony-streaming provisions in S. 978, provisions that would eventually became part of SOPA.
October 25, 2011
Anti-PIPA video released by FFTF
4 million+ views over next 3 months on Vimeo + YouTube
October 26, 2011
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) introduced in House with strong support
31 co-sponsors (12 at time of introduction)
www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show
October 28, 2011
Justin Bieber says on the radio that Amy Klobuchar should be ‘locked up’ for supporting the felony-streaming provisions in S. 978 and SOPA
November 16
The House Judiciary Committee holds hearings on SOPA
American Censorship Day is held to commemorate the House Judiciary Committee's first hearing on SOPA (6000 + websites)
1 million+ Congress contacts in one day
2 million petition signers
Boing Boing, Mozilla, Hype Machine, TechDirt agree to site takeover. 4Chan and 6,000 sites also take over their sites.
Unprecedented Tumblr blackout (first major web company direct action)
80,000 calls generated to Congress
Thousands of sites blacked out their logo all day
First mass political participation by web companies
Rep. Lofgren participates and censors her page
Reddit community becomes active on SOPA
subreddit /SOPA gains 10,000+ subscribers in just a few days
November 17
Responding to day of protests, Nancy Pelosi tweets her opposition to SOPA
November 29 — December 15
100,000's of calls during coalition-wide call-in campaigns to House Judiciary Committee
December 1
Colbert Report covers SOPA / PIPA
One of the first major television coverage moments
(many TV news parent companies are SOPA supporters)
December 15, 2011
The House Judiciary Committee holds hearings on SOPA
Huge online audience for the hearing
Dozens of amendments introduced and voted down
December 16, 2011
Hearing ends without completing markup
December 22, 2011
Reddit post suggests transferring domains away from GoDaddy for their support of SOPA and PIPA. Over 80,000 domain names were transferred in a matter of days
On December 23, Wikipedia announces transfer of all domains from GoDaddy.
January 2, 2012
Operation Pull Ryan on reddit generates $15,000 for the opposition candidate
December 29, 2011
GoDaddy issues statement changing their public position on the bills to opposed.
January 5, 2011
People attend town halls and start organizing in-person meetings with their Senators over the January recess
January 13, 2012
SOPA Strike is announced for Jan 18th - sopastrike.com launches to organize protest
Six Republican Senators ask Reid to cancel PIPA vote scheduled for Jan 24
January 13-18, 2012
More members of Congress start to come out against the bills citing meetings with constituents.
January 14, 2012
Obama administration publishes blog post opposing SOPA / PIPA
January 18, 2012
Web Goes on Strike: Largest Online Protest in History, precipitated by reddit.com, wikipedia and grassroots groups:
SOPA Strike Protest Happens
Largest online protest of all time
More than 1 billion people saw anti-SOPA messages on January 18
4 top-10, 13 top-100 US sites, 115,000 small and medium sites participated in strike, 50,000 blacked out all or part of site (Wordpress network: 27,000 blackout and 17,000 ribbons)
Participant list
Largest participants include:
Google
Reddit
Craigslist
Wikipedia
Wordpress
Imgur, Pinterest, Flickr, Amazon
10 million petition signers, 3 million emails, 100,000+ calls and 8 million Wikipedia call lookups to Congress opposing PIPA