The rise of the Internet over the past decade, particularly of large communities like Reddit, has made politicians take notice of their influence. Last month, Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California’s 16th District, appealed to Reddit for suggestions on her legislation regarding domain name seizures.
On her website, Lofgren wrote, "During SOPA I saw firsthand the Reddit community’s strong dedication to free expression. Because of that dedication, I thought I would attempt an experiment: crowdsourcing a legislative proposal on Reddit. The goal of the legislation would be to build due process requirements into domain name seizures for copyright infringement. I’d like your thoughts on the proposal."
The law, if passed, would apply to cases like that of Kim Dotcom and Megaupload, where the U. S. Department of Justice seized the domain name and shut down the website before arresting the company’s founder Kim Dotcom for allegedly operating a website that deliberately shared files that infringe copyright.
Lofgren’s law proposes that the government would be required to give notice prior to seizing a domain name and allow a website operator the opportunity to defend themselves.
The Reddit community is actually split into many smaller communities, called subreddits, based on the users’ interests. Though Lofgren’s appeal to Reddit for suggestions on the law did not make the front page of the main site (the post has only 505 upvotes from its users as of Dec. 6), there were 121 comments with suggestions and debate from Redditors, and feedback from Lofgren. The low profile was likely due to the post only being on one subreddit.
One user posted suggestions for how Lofgren could crowdsource in the future, including posting a bigger announcement across multiple subreddits and asking the moderators ahead of time for more assistance.
Internet crowdsourcing is still in its early days, but Lofgren’s Reddit post could have implications for what proposals appear in the final draft of the bill
