Today, founder of the non-profit behind information archive Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, announced that the site will go dark for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Student warning!Do your homework early.Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa
— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) January 16, 2012
While only the English version of the site will be down, it accounts for 25 million daily visitors according to Wales:
comScore estimates the English Wikipedia receives 25 million average daily visitors globally.
— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) January 16, 2012
When we talked to Wales in November, he told us that Wikipedia had over 420m unique monthly visitors, and there are now over 20 million articles on Wikipedia across almost 300 languages.
As we reported last week, the site was contemplating taking this action along with Reddit who announced that it would black out its site in protest against SOPA.
The 24 hour shutdown of Wikipedia will be replaced with instructions on how to reach out to your local US members of congress, and Wales says he hopes the measure will “melt phones” with volume:
This is going to be wow.I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday.Tell everyone you know!
— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) January 16, 2012
Along with Reddit, Wikipedia joins huge Internet names like WordPress, Mozilla, and all of the Cheezburger properties in Wednesday’s “black out” protest.
The proposed act endangers the future of sites like these by holding them directly accountable for content placed on them. It has been widely reported that if an act like this passed through and became actionable, many Internet businesses would suffer greatly due to new scrutiny placed on them by the government.
Will we end up like this? hopefully not.
http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/2011/10/soft-war-modern-democracy-warfare.html
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LikeGovernments will seek any means to find a way to collect taxes, and that is what drives such an act as SOPA. The Beatles were right in the "Taxman."
But groups, even governments, are made up of individuals; responsibility always comes back down to individuals.
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LikeInitially i disagreed with their move to shut down the worldwide english language site, in a very much American political fight; however, this passage made me reconsider:
The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.[4] After delivering a court order, theU.S. Attorney General could require US-directed Internet service providers, ad networks, and payment processors to suspend doing business with sites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws. The Attorney General could also bar search engines from displaying links to the sites.[12] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
With a legal hold over a handful of american companies like Google, the major ISPs, and payment processors they can effectively cripple any site no matter where its webmaster calls home.
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LikeHopefully SOPA will be dropped altogether and we don't end up with a modified version of SOPA put through (I doubt the MPAA will let it lie) which still potentially be abused in practice.
Still debating whether to disable the wife's website (http://www.fabgirlfitness.com) for a day :)
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LikeFacebook and Youtube is basicly owned by corporations already, so don't hope they will help the cause.
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LikeThank God some of the major sites are realizing the importance of this protest. http://watchavideo.net is another site that might black out :( Now if only Google and Facebook pitched in, the war would be won.
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LikeIt is going to be Black Wednesday all over Internet.
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Likeis not about "Wiki" is about the raping we are getting from thieves and murderers in power than want the internet not show their actions.
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LikeThanks for making ME pay for what you think is a bad law. You will not receive any more donations from me. <done>
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LikePeter Fox Why would you stop donating to them? All they are saying is that a proposed law will completely eliminate their ability to continue as a crowdsourced function, in that they would be responsible for what users posted. I'd actually compliment them on protecting your investment, not get mad....
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LikeAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
My sense of Peter Fox's comment was that there should be the freedom to research, think, and create one's own opinion on a law or any other subject. His objection, I believe, is the same as mine; why is someone else telling me what to think about a law.
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LikeeyereducamakatedAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
A free service is 'making' people pay? How entitled can people get? Are they're really 'telling you what to think'? No they're not, you're not forced to use them and you're not forced to think as they do - how anyone can be upset with Wikipedia over this is astounding.
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LikechobbesAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
Mr. Wales may have been better served offering an unbiased story on SOPA as opposed to making the determination that it is bad law and publishing it along with a subtle threat to hurry up one's homework due to same. It that sense Mr. Wales is telling the average reader who treads a blurb, me included, that the law is bad.
Then he subtly suggests that people call DC to correct this monstrosity which he determined is bad. Where is the user's responsibility?
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LikechobbesAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
"reads", not "treads"
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LikeWhat's the purpose here: to raise the issue as widely as possible. I'd say shutting the site for 24hrs better serves this purpose than an article and a press release.
This directly affects sites such as Wikipedia by making them liable for content posted by others, it strikes at the core of what they do. Sure he 'determined' it's bad, it IS bad for HIM.
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LikeeyereducamakatedchobbesAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
Would you rather people just sit around a let the law pass? As long as people care more about what happens on the latest reality show, they're not going to pay attention to the real important things, ie SOPA and PIPA in this case. Wikipedia is simply drawing attention to the subject.
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LikeeyereducamakatedAndrew LaveryPeter Fox
He used whatever leverage he has to contest a terrible law. And it worked. In announcing a halt to the introduction of SOPA only a short while ago, Chairman Issa.had this to say “The voice of the Internet community has been heard. Much more education for Members of Congress about the workings of the Internet is essential if anti-piracy legislation is to be workable and achieve broad appeal.”
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LikePeter Fox so u prefer losing 24 hours of wiki than losing the whole internet (what we have left)?
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LikeWho on earth uses this site for scholarly work? Moreover, who on earth accepts it as a valid site to cite?
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Likeeyereducamakated Wikipedia actually has a lower error rate than most encyclopedias: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html (yes, from 2005), and you do not use it as a citation, but to find further sources and give a general overview.
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LikeAndrew Lavery
I see. My objection from the extremely limited number of times I've used the site is from articles that lack citation at all. Your point, to use it as a springboard seems to be valid as long as the article has been sourced.
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Likeeyereducamakated I do and it's worth it. If you don't trust what's posted on the page you retrieved, simply try the references cited at the bottom. Also, Wikipedia volunteers constantly check the content for proper citations and relevant content. I wish there would be more people happy to contribute rather than sit back and complain.
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Likeeyereducamakated actually I do. fyi. And If I do, I'm plenty sure many others do too. Just because you're too stupid to use wiki for research and study doesn't mean many others don't.
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Likehttp://www.examiner.com/computers-in-denver/house-kills-sopa
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LikeRyan Bessling Can you second this with any other source?
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LikevolkerjRyan Bessling
Since people are requesting sources, here you go.
http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=...http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_o...http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-...http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/sopa-shelved-indefinitely-but-red...http://www.slashgear.com/sopa-shelved-after-obama-announcement-16209449/http://www.infowars.com/dead-on-arrival-sopa-shelved-indefinitely-obama-...http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/sopa-derailed/1897http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/01/16/obama-says-so-long-s...Among others.Continue reading on Examiner.com House Kills SOPA - Denver Computers | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/computers-in-denver/house-kills-sopa#ixzz1jhszLYd4
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LikeGary WilliamsvolkerjRyan Bessling I do not care what they say, they did not kill the bill, they only shelved it, and just because they shelved the SOPA, does not mean they did shit about PIPA.
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Like"Along with Reddit, Wikipedia joins huge Internet names like WordPress, Mozilla, and all of the Cheezburger properties in Wednesday’s “black out” protest."
@thatdrew Just to be clear, what has WordPress announced regarding any kind of "black out." I've seen a blog post urging users to use AmericanCensorship.org, and there are a number of "Stop SOPA" plugins available, but I haven't seen anything about a WordPress black out. Have you heard anything beyond that? Thanks.
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Likewow really not good
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LikeIt's 24 hours in an attempt to prevent what could become total obliteration. Even if you don't live in the US, the US government is attempting to pressure many other governments into the same kinds of laws. Your gracious donation will help keep it up and running the other 264 days this year.
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Likevelvetsiren there's 365 days in a year :]
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Likelukefleggvelvetsiren Yeah, but since it's going dark on the 18, it's just 364 days now.
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Likewutlukefleggvelvetsiren Oh gosh, you're cleaver!
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LikeDaniel Johanssonwutlukefleggvelvetsiren
It's a leap year :)
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LikeConversation from Facebook
I was sooo going into withdrawal! Unless Google shuts down too oh no!
And that's why Google cache exists.
holy shit! i am glad i gave them that dollar. i'm so happy to have contributed
What about the billions of us who don't live in the US but still donated.
Okay
…and will anyone notice it.
Hell yeah!!!!