The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has been making headlines, but what’s the public reaction been?
The Stop Online Piracy Act is getting more negative attention, as major websites such as Wikipedia protest the bill with blackouts. Even Google has joined in on the action, with a blackout of its logo and a link on its homepage explaining why the company opposes the legislation.
Given all the high-profile commentary on SOPA we were curious about what the online public had to say about the proposed legislation, which comes up for a vote on January 24th. Using the Crimson Hexagon ForSight platform we analyzed more than 700,000 relevant online opinions from Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Forums from December 17, 2011 to January 17, 2012.
Within the 733,503 relevant online opinions, 35% of the discussion represents a call to action, requesting a stop to the legislation. 23% of the online opinion supports web site blackouts and boycotts. 17% felt that SOPA curtails liberty and 9% of online comments were requests that citizens contact their elected officials to voice their opinions. The remaining 16% was general discussion and passing along the news related to SOPA legislation. It’s clear that SOPA certainly doesn’t have the support of the masses.
What do you think about SOPA? Should our legislators go back to the drawing board? We’d love to hear your opinon.
As always, we’ll continue analyzing the space for interesting trends.
