In the face of mountains of evidence that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) will censor online speech, hurt Internet security and infrastructure, and criminalize tools used by human rights activists in oppressive regimes, supporters of the blacklist bills say one subject trumps all others: jobs.
Yet for unknown reasons, Congress is ignoring that SOPA/PIPA would depress the growing tech sector, all while citing the MPAA's misleading and debunked numbers on how piracy is “decimating” their industry.
The tech sector has been a huge economic driver in a time of general economic stagnation. In 2011, California “created more jobs than any other, adding 233,000 workers to the payrolls in the past year — 6,500 in just the last month,” according to CBS News. “The hot spots: high-tech centers where jobs are up in Silicon Valley, San Diego, San Francisco and Orange County.” Another study shows Facebook apps and mobile apps alone are responsible for almost 200,000 jobs over the last few years.
The tech sectors have been crucial to the recovery of local economies. For example, San Francisco is seeing job growth reach levels near the dot com peak in the mid 1990s. In fact, "high-tech industry growth during 2011 drove the best market performance in more than a decade” in the northwest region on the United States. But this phenomenon is hardly confined to Northern California: the same is true in less obviously tech-focused states like Tennessee.
Passing SOPA/PIPA could drastically impede this job growth. A study done by Booz and Company found that “Investors and venture capitalists ‘overwhelmingly’ said they would stop investing in Internet startups if SOPA/PIPA passed and website were liable for content posted by users.” A letter sent to Congress from an influential group of VCs echoes the study's conclusions.
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