Considering how controversial the bill has now become, a backlash has begun against the 400+ companies publicly in favor of SOPA with calls for widespread boycotts. GoDaddy was the internet’s latest target, and thousands of Reddit users supported a “move your domain day” on December 29 for anyone who has a domain registered on GoDaddy to its competitors. Initially GoDaddy wasn’t paying too much attention to the threats, issuing this public statement:

“Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business. We understand there are many differing opinions on the SOPA regulations.”

It’s generally not a good idea to take a large stick and start hitting a beehive, but you could say that’s exactly what GoDaddy did when they issued that statement. People started getting even angrier with GoDaddy. Of course, the increased calls for boycotts and domain changes was due in part to what Ben Huh had to say. Huh runs a successful web business, but does not support SOPA. He tweeted that he would take his business somewhere else if GoDaddy didn’t immediately drop its support of the legislation.

This leads us to one very important question: who is Ben Huh? Well, he happens to be the CEO of the Cheezburger Network. The network includes popular sites like FAILblog, The Daily What, and Know Your Meme.

But the tipping point may have been a tweet earlier today by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia. Wales proudly announced that Wikipedia would “move away from GoDaddy” because the public position they have taken on SOPA is “unacceptable to us.”

It’s unclear exactly what changed their minds or got them to buckle under the public relations pressure, but earlier today, not 24 hours after standing by their support of SOPA, GoDaddy.com officially withdrew its support in yet another public statement.

Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

To translate what he’s saying into English:

“We’ve decided on taking a neutral stance on this issue since we really don’t want to lose all this business so pretty please don’t be mad at us anymore.”

Many SOPA opponents felt victorious today, but others are still insisting the boycott take place. One recent Reddit post is titled “It sounds obvious, but; GoDaddy’s SOPA flip-flop is a PR stunt to try to stop losing money. They haven’t changed, keep boycotting, please!”

You may recall that, earlier this year, the 26,000 member strong Newspaper Guild called for all unpaid Huffington Post bloggers to withhold work in support of a pre-existing strike.

RELATED: Dan Abrams Takes On The Huffington Post ‘Strikers’

Now, seven months later, the Guild has released the following explanation for dropping its boycott of the news and entertainment site:

We appreciate the Post’s lively engagement in an ongoing dialogue. After a number of very productive meetings, the Huffington Post has agreed to draw a bright line in the sand between staffers and bloggers, with (unpaid) bloggers no longer being assigned stories or expected to cover news.

“Expected to cover news”? Bercovici adds reaction to the news by a HuffPost spokesperson:

We remain excited about and committed to our Eyes and Ears citizen journalism initiative. In fact, Ryan Grim in his remarks to the Guild at its yearly dinner last night explained the value of citizen journalism, and underscored that this complements the necessary work of paid reporters — it’s not meant to replace it.

Indeed, the Huffington Post has long kept a stable of paid writers and editors whose work has been (depending on where you’re standing) augmented by or has existed in tandem with the work provided by unpaid bloggers. How exactly that distinction will play out now and whether it will be different in practice remains unclear given the wording of the Guild’s statement — particularly where “expectation” is concerned.

h/t Forbes

Huh?

Ok, here’s a little background. A few years ago, Levi’s started their “Go Forth” campaign of ads. The ads sought to celebrate the company’s American heritage by matching dramatically read Walt Whitman poems with beautiful shots and evocative shots of young people and American landscapes. Think a Rick Perry campaign ad but less ACTION PACKED.

Anyway, the ads were pretty gorgeous, won some awards, and chances are good that, if you went to the movies in 2009 or 2010, you probably saw one and maybe even liked it. So the company, wanting to stick with a good thing, decided to make a version that would work for the global market. So they kept the “pretty young people + poem” angle, this time using a poem by Charles Bukowski. However, amidst the shots of models making out while wearing perfectly fitting Levi’s jeans, the commercial also featured images of young people engaged in protests and staring down riot police.

Here’s the ad:

Unsurprisingly, people in England weren’t thrilled to have these ads appear last month during the London riots. So the company pulled them in the United Kingdom (although versions in other nations aired as planned). At the time, they released this statement:

“We are deeply disheartened about the unprecedented events taking place in the U.K. at the moment and which have impacted communities across the country. While ‘Go Forth’ is about embodying the energy and events of our time, it is not about any specific movement or political theme; rather, it’s about optimism, positive action, and a pioneering spirit. Out of sensitivity for what is happening in the U.K., we have temporarily postponed our cinema and Facebook spots in the country.”

Anyway, cut to Monday night when the ad finally aired here in America during the Rams-Giants game. While many, many people saw the ad, The Blaze’s Jonathon M. Seidl was able to pick up on its insidious nature, writing a post yesterday entitled “LEVI’S AIRS CONTROVERSIAL YOUTH RIOTERS AD DURING FOOTBALL GAME: ‘GO FORTH’”:

“On Monday night, I jumped out of bed after seeing something startling on TV. See, I decided to turn in a little early and watch the Rams-Giants game before dozing off. But about a half hour into it, I saw something shocking. It wasn’t a commercial for the latest horror flick, or a wardrobe malfunction. Instead, it was a jeans ad. A Levi’s jeans ad.

But it wasn‘t just any Levi’s jeans ad. No, this ad showed young people reveling in rioting. There was one young person riding his bike through tear gas, a mob of young people marching, and to top it off a young man shown taunting riot police.

That was enough to make me sit straight up.”

This must have caught the attention of Seidl’s boss because, this morning on his radio show, Glenn Beck was railing against the ads and saying that he would never again buy the company’s products. This is doubly sad because, apparently, Levi’s used to be his favorite jeans brand. On the show, he described wearing a pair of Levi’s jeans just the other day and discussing them with his wife:

“I put on a pair of old Levi’s and I said to my wife, ‘I love Levi’s! I’ve loved them since I was a kid. They’re my favorite jeans! I don’t know why I don’t wear them all the time!’ I am turning my red tabs in. I will not wear a pair of Levi’s. Won’t do it.”

This is big news. Apparently the Beck household is filled with some of the dullest conversation imaginable.

Seriously though, co-host Pat Grey pointed out that the media would accuse Beck of calling for a Levi’s boycott but Beck reminded listeners that he doesn’t believe in boycotts. Still, as we’ve pointed out in the past, the only difference between an influential public figure saying a company is trying to inspire violent revolutions and actively calling for a boycott is the lack of pamphlets.

Well, the commercial is above and here’s the clip of Beck’s comments. What do you all think?

(h/t HuffPo)

As CBS News reports, Congress is at a record 82 percent disapproval level, spurred on by the partisan bickering over the debt deal. It inspired a profanity-laced Twitter trend, and now it’s inspired Starbucks CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz to take a stand against partisanship.

Schultz sent out an e-mail to employees complaining about “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda.” Over the next few days, his message caught on and received support from 50 business leaders. That’s when Schultz decided to call for individuals and corporations to boycott all campaign contributions to political candidates until Congress can put aside partisan bickering and come together to tackle the important issues.

However, according to NewsMeat, Schultz has himself donated to several political campaigns over the past two years. In March, he donated $5000 to Sen. Maria Cantwell’s campaign, and in 2010 he gave money to both Sen. Patty Murray and then-candidate Rep. Terri Sewell (D- Alabama). If Schultz is serious about his boycott, chances are he won’t be donating any time soon.

Watch the report below, courtesy of CBS News:

New York gay activist Allen Roskoff, who co-authored the nation’s first gay rights bill in the 1970s, says recent comments by Donald Trump to the Des Moines Register about gay marriage have left Roskoff pondering a boycott of Trump’s businesses.

“He’s crossed the Rubicon,” Roskoff tells the New York Daily News. “It’s unconscionable that he could exist in New York City.”

In an interview with the Register, Trump was asked whether he supports “allowing same-sex couples to marry:”

Trump said “no,” but didn’t stop there. When Beaumont asked whether gay couples should have access to “the same benefits as married couples,” the mogul initially replied that his attitude on the issue was not yet “fully formed.”

After thinking about it for a moment, however, Trump said: “As of this moment, I would say no and no” to gay marriage and civil benefits.

For Roskoff, the answer shows “he’s an extreme bigot,” and deserves a boycott, which would target advertisers on Trump’s NBC show Celebrity Apprentice as well as Trump-branded casinos and apartment buildings in New York.

Beck returned from vacation this week, and some Internet commenters have noticed that there appear to be less (or shorter) advertisements during his show. In fact, yesterday’s program appeared to have skipped its first commercial break — its first segment lasted roughly 18 minutes (nearly twice the normal length of an opening segment). When asked about this, a Fox News publicist spokesperson offered no further comment clarified that Glenn Beck’s show has always been a five segment show, and the first segment typically runs 15 to 18 20 minutes in length.

Our interview with James Rucker:

Q – How is it going so far?

A – So far 36 Advertisers have pulled their spots from the Glenn Beck show, or otherwise made sure that they won’t air on his program. Right now I’d say things are going relatively well.

Q – What is the stated goal of the boycott?

A – Our goal is to make companies aware that they are enabling Glenn Beck — their dollars are what gives him a very large platform – a platform that is being used to divide the country with false information masquerading as news.

Q – Fox News has gone on record saying that that boycott has not cost them any ad dollars. Just how effective is the boycott?

A – It’s probably fair to say that they haven’t lost ad dollars yet, but the key word is “yet.” Right now you have advertisers with existing commitments, and they are moving ads to other programs. For those advertisers – when they are up for a new contract who knows what will happen. They may stay on other programs, or they may just leave Fox altogether. But at the end of the day our goal isn’t to remove dollars from Fox News.  It’s to reduce the value of Beck’s show.

Q – But if you truly want to effect change, isn’t the goal to have Fox lose money?

A – From my understanding — and you can correct me if I’m wrong — there are a few ways to buy ads. Companies that want to advertise can specify price and which eyeballs, meaning that some are willing to pay for the whole network, and there are advertisers that are paying a premium to advertise on a specific program or time slot. We’re trying to decrease the number of of ads that are paid to run on Glenn Beck, so it decreases the value of the ads. He’s in a prime spot at 5pm — we’re hoping to drive down the value of the ads on his show.

Q – So what is the actual desired net effect of your boycott?

A – Now it may be the case that Glenn Beck is glad to be validated by a small self-marginalizing group. It may be that Fox is comfortable being a validator of this marginalized group that peddles race-based fears. But it’s my guess is that Fox does not want that to be what their brand is about. I’m not sure that they want to be seen as promoters or enablers of race baiting.

Q – Enablers of race baiting?

A – Sure — they provide the platform for Glenn Beck and everyone else at Fox News — when you see the pattern of what he has said: “Obama said, quote: ‘We have got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the military.’” Or “Obama wants an America that looks more like Acorn”, or that Obama’s stated goal is “remaking America that will settle old racial scores” – this is a theme that he’s been hitting on repeatedly.

Q – So what do you make of Fox’s official comment that Glenn Beck’s opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of Fox News.

A – When Fox says that its just his opinion, and that they are somehow not responsible it rings hollow. They are buying the megaphone and providing him the stage, and then they say “it’s him and not me.” It rings hollow. Does Fox believe this controversy is good for ratings or their business? Perhaps. But for them to call themselves a news network, then let Glenn Beck use their platform as he does – it’s beyond irresponsible. It’s reprehensible.

Q – Would you ever consider expanding your boycott to Fox News?

A – Right now the focus is on Glenn Beck.  Of course, should Fox continue to stand behind Beck as he uses his platform to put out false information as news or news commentary, they are making themselves a target.

Q – What would have to happen for you to set your sites on the network and not just the show?

A – I wouldn’t comment much more on this at this point.