Last Monday we flagged up why avatars were disappearing all Twitter and Facebook as users worldwide showed their support for the blackout New Zealand campaign. Today was scheduled the final day of the blackout and the Creative Freedom Foundation has been urging New Zealand based web sites for one last push at getting the introduction of Section 92A canned, which appears to have worked as it was announced earlier that the introduction of the clause will be delayed until 27th March.
The move was announced by Kiwi Prime Minister, John Key, who said that it had been decided following a cabinet discussion earlier today. The reason for the delay is so that the government can work with the Internet sector in NZ on a workable code of practice to implement the law, he added that if no agreement is reached the section would be suspended. If it does go ahead then there will be a review after six months to see if the law is still working as intended.
All of which sounds remarkably sensible.
The question now is how much of the potential U-turn can be attributed to the online black out action. Counting those who were taking part would be tricky although it did work well as a talking point for media coverage. Offline there was a 200 strong demonstration outside of Parliament last Thursday and the leader of United Future, Peter Dunne, was presented with a petition signed by 10,000. The signatures were gathered online but presented as a real life print out – stacks of paper looking far more real than a web page.
Unfortunately the NZ government hasn’t said which particular tactic was the one that got their attention, though it would be safe to assume that it was a combination of online activity raising awareness and driving media coverage worldwide, supported by real world action grabbing more specific attention, that did the trick. An approach that Mat covered recently in his post on five ways to integrate communication activities.
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