English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

[qubit]

On January 18, 2012, in an unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed legislation in the United States - the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.



Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in a public statement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion):

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

"Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. "This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the United States, find your elected representative in Washington (https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States, contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the internet to remain open and free.

About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011). Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.

Media Contact:
For the Wikimedia Foundation

Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh@wikimedia.org

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[HossHuge]

Does this mean that people can get 1/366 of thier donation money back?

 

[starstarman]

May I get the 3 seconds of life wasted on reading your response too then?

 

[qubit]

Of course, the real question is whether TPU will be going dark in protest...

 

[entropy13]

Here's the only "working" wikipedia page.

 

[Maban]

Here's the only "working" wikipedia page.

They all work. You just have to hit stop at the right moment. In my opinion it's pretty fail on Wikimedia's part to not actually block anything unless this is analogous to how easy it would be to get around a SOPA block?

 

[imitation]

They all work. You just have to hit stop at the right moment. In my opinion it's pretty fail on Wikimedia's part to not actually block anything unless this is analogous to how easy it would be to get around a SOPA block?

Wikipedia even explains how you can get around the blackout by disabling Javascript alltogether. They're actually pretty decent about their actions, trying to not do any harm to the reader, but raise the his awareness for PIPA and SOPA.

Wikipedia is as good as offline anyways, their servers are getting hammered...

 

[entropy13]

They all work. You just have to hit stop at the right moment. In my opinion it's pretty fail on Wikimedia's part to not actually block anything unless this is analogous to how easy it would be to get around a SOPA block?

They aren't "working", but they're working.

 

[treehouse]

May I get the 3 seconds of life wasted on reading your response too then?

hhahaha that made me laugh!

cheers

 

[xenocide]

Wikipedia even explains how you can get around the blackout by disabling Javascript alltogether. They're actually pretty decent about their actions, trying to not do any harm to the reader, but raise the his awareness for PIPA and SOPA.

Wikipedia is as good as offline anyways, their servers are getting hammered...

It would be easier if they just implemented a small button on the bottom of the screen to click through it, similar to how Ads work for a lot of sites. It's nice to see big names like Wiki and Google getting in on this though.

 

[Frick]

I've been to wikipedia at least 5 times today. It really is a ubiquitous entity that we don't appreciate until it's gone for just a day.

 

[Peter1986C]

The Dutch wikipedia is still opened, but there is a large black banner at the top of the page.

Translation: "The internet must remain free and open. The American SOPA law proposal endangers the freedom of the internet and Wikipedia. Not only in the USA, but globally. [More info]"

 

[Frick]

Yeah, swedeish version is open as well but a lot of stuff is missing there. The english version simply covers more.

 

[Peter1986C]

True, the English version is more elaborate with many articles (a few paragraphs instead of a few lines), and has got more articles altogether. But I just wanted to show how localised Wikipedias "did it".

 

[xfire]

Disable java script to stop the blacking out.

 

[specks]

FFS just stop this crap. The internet would be almost useless with this SOPA stuff.

 

[qubit]

I've been to wikipedia at least 5 times today. It really is a ubiquitous entity that we don't appreciate until it's gone for just a day.

Hehe, for once we agree.

 

[Morgoth]

i didt know internet was free, why i am paying monthy fee's to my provider????

 

[Peter1986C]

i didt know internet was free, why i am paying monthy fee's to my provider????

"free" as in "freedom" and "free speech". Not "free" as in "Free beer".

 

[Super XP]

If anything people should be donating a lot more to Wikipedia. I am getting tired of this censorship crap. These companies need to lay the F**k off.

Some people may not think this is a big deal, but if this nonesense ever gets passed, the question you have to ask is WHAT ELSE?

 

[Delta6326]

On Wikipedia right now. Its fun trying to click on stuff really fast. It's like a game!