Editorial: Silence isn't speaking out

Last week, a number websites protested the Senate's proposed Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House's proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The proposals are both dead ("for now"). And so some might call the protests a success.

We wouldn't be among those people.

There were two forms of protests. Wikipedia offered one form of protest.




This manner of protesting was to shut down their website. Here at Third, we cursed the fact that the action took place on a Wednesday and not a Sunday. Yeah, we would have gone dark for the protest, we would have gone dark to sleep Saturday night, to awake after the sun rose on Sunday, to . . . Uh, to register our objection. Yeah.

The second form of protest could be seen by Goggle's efforts.



Like Wikipedia, Google got the word out. Unlike Wikipedia, Google didn't stop working. Google didn't silence itself.

As a general rule, we're not fond of silence as a form of protest. So many peopele in the world are voiceless that we just don't support those who have voices choosing to go silence. If that's your way of protest, feel free to do it and we're sure some people will elect to join you.

But those people won't include us.