Anti-piracy battle reveals dysfunctional thinking

So, this last week dealt a few blows to supporters of new anti-piracy legislation. And today, websites around the world, including some biggies, have gone dark in protest of anti-piracy legislation. The guts of SOPA have been eviscerated to the point that Google and others can still profit from piracy; and many legislators and the White House show signs of bowing to public pressure as the contentious election year is upon us and Silicon Valley’s fear campaign has worked its magic -- especially on my fellow Democrats and artists. 

If SOPA and PIPA fail, or fail to pass in substantive form, it will indeed be a shame for American content creators and consumers, but the real shame is what this process reveals about the stagnation of governance in general.

Remember the healthcare circus? Instead of rational discourse about the underlying problems in a system that is clearly broken, we got diversionary scare tactics like “death panels” for the aged. My fellow Democrats and I wondered in frustration how anyone could believe such transparent fear-mongering; but now that the issue is online piracy, it is dismaying to realize that my ideological allies are just as easily sucker-punched as my ideological foes.

Yes, I really am comparing the belief that SOPA threatens free speech with a belief in healthcare death panels; and I am more than willing to insult my friends to make the point. Both fears are irrational, both fears have been ginned up and funded by corporate interests, and both fears lead the electorate away from a sober effort to address a tangible problem. As a result, the general public loses to corporate greed -- again. And just to clarify for the libertarian element out there, I mean greed as distinct from enterprise because there is nothing about capitalism that guarantees the right to derive revenue from illegal activities.

One could download the text of these bills and discover that there isn’t any evidence for the overwrought, doomsday claims made by the opposition; but like the death panel nuts, my friends aren’t seeking information so much as validation for what they want to believe in the first place. The Internet can be a source for what we need to know but is more often a source for what we want to hear; and in this case, what so many seem to want to hear is that anti-piracy legislation is just a Hollywood/government conspiracy to control us all. Frankly, I think we’ve gone just a bit conspiracy mad in this country, and I blame the egocentrism fostered by the digital age itself.

Consider for a moment the practicalities of squelching free speech in America. Speech is a genie not easily stuffed back into its bottle once released even in the most oppressive societies; so logic and history suggest that it would take extraordinary events to effectively silence our voices in a nation that has never existed without this basic right.  Nevertheless, the paranoiac assumption that narrowly focused bills like SOPA and PIPA can “shut down anyone anywhere anytime” stems from an egotism bordering on schizophrenia. Everyone thinks he has something so vital to say that of course it would arouse the interest of some vast network of would-be censors.

The PR forces of Silicon Valley have played directly into this psychology, and it is manifest in thousands of online comments that portray as Big Brother anyone who would even consider these bills. Paradoxically, while web culture celebrates individuality, its economics tend to produce a tremendous amount of group think. Most online “reporters” and news aggregators function by sourcing one another rather than engaging in original, investigative journalism.  So, while it may appear that there is broad consensus on a particular issue such as this one, the reality is that there is just a lot of shoddy, amateur journalism out there. This means any vested interest can more easily manipulate public opinion today than in the pre-Internet era.

I would never advocate blind trust in any government or organization, but blind mistrust is equally dysfunctional because it breeds the idea that there is literally nobody left willing to act in good faith to solve any problem. If this is indeed true, what hope is there for the country in general to address any of its myriad challenges? If everything is a grand conspiracy, what is the solution to that paradox? Where does that logic conclude? Whom could we elect that would possibly mollify this stagnating neurosis? The answer is there is nobody we could elect, and that’s why I believe we are seeing the most extreme, most egotistical voices -- from the Tea Party to Anonymous -- aiming not for change, but to dismantle the system itself. And that, my fellow Democrats, is where this process leads.  

If SOPA and PIPA are defeated not because of legal merit but because of a desire to throw off the shackles of a media oligopoly, we will only have donned the shackles of the tech oligopoly who scared us into doing their political bidding.  I know my friends and colleagues will celebrate recent developments as a victory for freedom, but I believe without reservation that it is only a victory for chaos.

David Newhoff is a filmmaker from New York.

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