Has anyone started to measure the effectiveness (attention, awareness, change) of the Occupy movement versus blackout SOPA/PIPA?
On one hand, Occupy Wall Street and the movements across the country gained plenty of media attention. With people physically taking over public spaces, standing on street corners, and getting pepper-sprayed, it was hard to miss. But was the point well received by the public at-large? Or congress? Or business? Was there a clear goal reached?
On the other hand, by “turning off” websites in order to protest the ability for organizations to… “turn off” websites, did the public miss the point? Did it turn people against Wikipedia (see @herpderpedia)? Did it confuse visitors to Google? Or did it immediately capture the attention of millions of individuals with a few simple lines of code? Congresspeople have already started distancing themselves.
I wonder this because the two approaches appear to go about the same thing: protesting a government full of corporate mouthpieces with no real appreciation for what “real people” need. Police are trained to quash demonstrations and pepper-spray people, yet nobody but “the internet” can mess with the internet (yet..).