Bloggers Launch a 21st Century "Tea Party" Targeting the AP

Back in March, I presented Social Actions at the NY Tech Meetup, alongside (and thanks to) ThePoint founder Andrew Mason.

His social action platform was the darling of the night, inspiring many tech professionals in the big apple to envision large corporations changing their business practices on economic grounds established by consumers.

By launching campaigns on the ThePoint, Mason explained how consumers could pressure companies into changing their policies. First they would have to identify the "tipping point" number of participants for a certain action. When the magic number of pledged participants is reached, then it becomes financially in the company's interest and far less embarrassing to accept the demand from consumers than to suffer the collective action of the angry consumers. Andrew explained the concept better than I have here, but hopefully you follow.

At the time, Meetup founder Scott Heiferman predicted that eventually a situation would arise where thousands of consumers would turn to the ThePoint to take collective action on a corporate folly. The situation may have presented itself in the form of an Associated Press demand that bloggers quote no more than 4 words from an AP article. Failing to do so invites legal challenges.

ThePoint evangelist and collective action blogger Alex Steed refuses to accept the new AP policy. He is asking 1000 bloggers to pledge to continue excerpting AP articles as per usual. His calculation is that the legal costs of prosecuting 1000 bloggers would exceed any financial benefits from the AP's new policy.

If you are a blogger or sympathetic internet user, you are invited to join the Blogger/AP Tea Party.

You can read more about the campaign on Alex Steed's blog Make Something Happen.