Surprising Graphic Explains the Largest Protest in History Says Frugaldad.com

HOW THE WEB WAS WON

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Jan 31, 2012, 07:00 ET

DENVER, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- On Wed., Jan. 18th the Internet stood up against two censorship bills pending in Congress. In the largest social declaration in history, millions of people and tens of thousands of websites boycotted or blacked out as a demonstration of U.S. gov't sanctioned censorship. Today, both SOPA and PIPA are tabled. Recounting the day in blackouts and tweets, Frugaldad's new graphic, "The Day the Internet Stood Still" explains how this protest, the largest in history, signals social media as more than a forum to discuss Bieber's new tattoo—it's the last best place to mobilize media users.

For their part, sites like Wikipedia and Tumblr enabled emails and calls by blacking out content pages and replacing them with links to contact representatives. No day in Congressional history saw such an onslaught of contact. Wikipedia's black banners were viewed 160 million times. Their protest brought three times more curious visitors than normal. With over 3 million emails sent on Wednesday alone, Congressional rep. contact links were down due to traffic. And with over 400,000 phone calls to Congress, each representative received an average of 919 calls.

If passed, SOPA and PIPA would place full copyright burden on websites. This means major content hosts--sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter--could face infringement charges and government shut down. Internet users owe the unpopularity and tabling of these censorship bills to the very social media platforms they endanger.

Check out the Infographic in its entirety here:
http://frugaldad.com/hosting

About Frugaldad.com

Jason White founded frugaldad.com in 2007 after spending years as a representative for various credit card and banking companies. He has helped thousands of readers from across the globe save money with his informative financial advice and money saving deals. White now works in software development and lives in Denver, CO.

For more information, please visit www.frugaldad.com, or contact Jason white at [email protected].

SOURCE Frugaldad.com