Why was there such a huge outcry against SOPA and PIPA but not against the FCC's proposed rules against net neutrality?

I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past month or two, and my best theory so far is that it comes down to two things: a) censorship by government vs. censorship by corporation, and b) the interests of the websites involved in publicizing the issue.

To provide some context for those who don’t follow internet politics closely, or those who were caught up in the protests just because they couldn’t use Wikipedia for a day, SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, was a bill proposed in the House of Representatives that would have expanded the abilities of US law enforcement to combat copyright infringement. Specifically, SOPA would have allowed the government to block advertisements that linked to illegal sites, prevent search engines from displaying these links, and order ISPs (Internet service providers) to block access to the websites. SOPA would have also made unauthorized streaming of content a criminal activity, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. PIPA, or the Protect IP Act, was a bill very similar to SOPA that was instead introduced in the Senate about a month later.

Net neutrality is the principle that all data on the Internet should be treated equally. It ensures that ISPs do not discriminate or charge differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or modes of communication. For instance, if you are checking Quora and your friend is checking Facebook instead, net neutrality ensures that you are not being charged different rates for doing so. In January, the DC Circuit Court ruled in favor of Verizon in the Verizon vs. FCC case, claiming that the FCC has no legal ability to enforce net neutrality laws. This ruling allows ISPs to create a tiered system of internet access, with those who can pay the most receiving the fastest service, both for websites and for end users. Verizon also plans to discriminate against users based on the amount and type of content they access, as can be seen in their recent patents.

Both SOPA/PIPA and the demise of net neutrality effectively create tiers of accessibility for online content, albeit with different blacklists for each decision; SOPA/PIPA would blacklist every site containing copyright-infringing material (and every site linking to them), and the new FCC proposal will allow ISPs to both charge websites more to have access to the Internet users, and charge Internet users more based on what content they access. The major difference between the two is that the death of net neutrality results in an internet blacklist that ISPs can charge higher rates for.

Now for the fun part. The companies opposing SOPA/PIPA included Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla, Mojang, Riot Games, Epic Games, Reddit, and Wikipedia.

The companies supporting net neutrality are . . . Netflix and (maybe) Amazon.

Why? Because the success of SOPA/PIPA would have resulted in massive government interference with every website where link-sharing was allowed. Imagine what it would be like if Twitter was shut down every time someone tweeted a link to a video stream. The overwhelming prevalence of illegally-showcased copyrighted material would have presented most of these companies with the Sisyphean task of constantly policing for illegal content, on top of regular government interference. So, they used their online popularity to draw attention to SOPA/PIPA. The sites listed above make up 8 of the 10 most-visited webpages in the United States, according to Alexa, and many of them blacked-out their websites in protest of the bills – now that’s a lot of visibility. On the net neutrality side, Netflix and Amazon Prime focus heavily on video streaming, a service whose cost will likely skyrocket as the new FCC parameters fall into place. As such, they are speaking out against the FCC’s ruling. Most of the other companies mentioned do not have the same level of pressing concern on the topic. Not that any of this attention is a bad thing! I think copyright law as it stands now needs some pretty severe modification, and I don’t think locking someone up for 5 years is a good way to deal with watching television online or listening to a few songs. I just think it’s important to note that these companies also have their own interests in mind.

Finally, I would posit that most of the major companies have (so far) neglected to start a similar campaign against the FCC’s ruling because they depend entirely on ISPs to reach their audiences; speaking out against SOPA/PIPA did not potentially threaten their broadcasting capability in the same way this would. For now, they are treading carefully, but rumor has it that Google and Netflix are considering an all-out PR blitz against the FCC’s net neutrality plan, so we may yet see the same level of media attention in the coming weeks. I certainly hope we do!