<story><title>Alexis Ohanian vs NBC - Debating SOPA</title><url>http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-debating-sopa</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cal5k</author><text>That was absolutely frustrating to watch. Alexis is a well-spoken guy with cogent points to make, but I think he was outmatched in that debate by a guy with way more media experience. Richard Cotton stuck to his deceptive, populist talking points (&quot;jobs&quot;, &quot;wholesale theft&quot;, &quot;will not affect a single US site&quot;) to great effect.&lt;p&gt;Alexis will get better as he continues to appear in the media, and I&apos;m sure he&apos;s getting media coaching, but he needs to be more aggressive in, for example, telling Richard Cotton to shove it when he rudely interrupts.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s as simple as &quot;Richard, Richard... I let you speak, now let me finish my point. The problem with...&quot;&lt;p&gt;Still, props to Alexis for actively fighting against these awful, awful bills!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chernevik</author><text>Alexis never said why anyone should object to the bill.  So what if it&apos;s completely circumventable?  Saying stuff like &quot;what concerns me most is it won&apos;t work&quot; doesn&apos;t make sense -- isn&apos;t the most concerning thing DNS breakage?  [EDIT: Concerning to everyday users.  Me, I&apos;m most worried about censorship -- but that is not the catchiest argumet.]  And when Cotton says stuff like &quot;that&apos;s wrong&quot; -- twice -- Alexis has to explain how &quot;that&apos;s right&quot;, quickly and unambiguously.  Or the viewer will begin to presume that Cotton is right on the facts.  Whereas if he&apos;s refuted, or has to explain the sense in which he&apos;s right, he&apos;s the one on the defensive.&lt;p&gt;Cotton knew his brief, and the presentation of that brief, much better than Alexis did his.  Add in decades of political and rhetorical training and this isn&apos;t even a fair fight.&lt;p&gt;Guys like Cotton can be beaten, but only with 1) a much better case on the facts and 2) a complete mastery of the presentation of that case.  This is a long way from home.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: One of the hardest things in what Alexis is doing is having people criticize how he&apos;s doing it.  I congratulate him for putting himself out there for his principles and his community.  He&apos;s up against people who have spent their entire lives training in interested (as opposed to principled) advocacy.  He can be a lot better at this, and he can win -- after all, he&apos;s right!  But he has to get a lot better at the execution.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alexis Ohanian vs NBC - Debating SOPA</title><url>http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-debating-sopa</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cal5k</author><text>That was absolutely frustrating to watch. Alexis is a well-spoken guy with cogent points to make, but I think he was outmatched in that debate by a guy with way more media experience. Richard Cotton stuck to his deceptive, populist talking points (&quot;jobs&quot;, &quot;wholesale theft&quot;, &quot;will not affect a single US site&quot;) to great effect.&lt;p&gt;Alexis will get better as he continues to appear in the media, and I&apos;m sure he&apos;s getting media coaching, but he needs to be more aggressive in, for example, telling Richard Cotton to shove it when he rudely interrupts.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s as simple as &quot;Richard, Richard... I let you speak, now let me finish my point. The problem with...&quot;&lt;p&gt;Still, props to Alexis for actively fighting against these awful, awful bills!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcrites</author><text>It didn&apos;t seem to me that Alexis was outclassed by Cotton -- it seemed simply that Cotton was making points which Alexis didn&apos;t even attempt to oppose.&lt;p&gt;Cotton said &quot;this only applies to foreign sites which are wholesale devoted to copyright infringement&quot;. Is that true or not? If it&apos;s false, why didn&apos;t Alexis say so?</text></comment>