I think that #STOPSOPA has clearly demonstrated that a lot of people making noise can influence the United States at the very least; and the United States has a number of economic and political tools (I'm not including military tools here) that it can use to influence the decisions of many less than democratic regimes. Politicians are more willing to advocate the use of these tools publically if they think that 1) People care about this; 2) People support using them.
Unfortunately, international policy making is even more opaque and convoluted than the US legislative process. ITU has been several years in the making, and at the penultimate meeting back in October, it's likely that almost all of the big decisions were finalized.
