Wikipedia Take Anti-SOPA Action With 24-Hour Blackout Protest
While many websites across the web are naturally against a current discussive piece of American legislation (the Stop Online Piracy Act), it seems that most are not doing much to make themselves noticed other than lend their name to lists of ‘anti-SOPA’ movement supporters. Wikipedia, however, look to be the first big name to bring out drastic measures in the fight, as they prepare to shut down for 24 hours in protest against the bill, which is thought to be in ongoing discussion by US Congress.
The site, which advertises itself as a free online encyclopedia which anyone can edit and make contributions to (meaning that it would most likely fall foul of SOPA), will be temporarily inaccessible as of 05:00 UTC (00:00 ET), and replaced in America by a page listing contact details of the user’s local Congress representatives. Site co-founder Jimmy Wales stated his hope that the move will: “…melt phone systems in Washington [DC].”
Wales announced the shut-down protest via Twitter, writing: “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa.”
Despite rumours of the bill progressing further said to be slowing down a lot more, Wales also wrote that there was still a battle that needed to be won: “We have no indication that SOPA is fully off the table. PIPA [Protect IP Act] is still alive and kicking. We need to send Washington a BIG message.”
And no message is probably as big as shutting down one of the Internet’s biggest websites for an entire day, with Wikipedia recently advertising their move through black banners on the top of each page. Clicking the banner leads a user to information on why the protest is being made, with a statement reading:
“It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.
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.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.”
This means that the protest will be limited to English-language site, with users in countries such as England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, and Scotland (amongst many others) set to be most affected despite having no affiliation to the US law.
As the above statement suggests, Wikipedia believe that it is a matter of global importance to keep the bill from passing (to avoid similar laws being brought into other countries), and while some outsiders claim that the protest impedes on Wikipedia’s classic ‘neutral’ and ‘non-political’ stance, the announcement message stated their current position, reading: “…although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not.”
The SOPA and PIPA bills are currently a key talking point amongst websites both big and small, with the overwhelming majority of sites said to be against the legislation. While supporters of the bill include high-profile organisations such as Warner Bros., Disney, and American sports leagues NFL and MLB, anti-SOPA websites probably win through in the popularity stakes, with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, GoDaddy, eBay, and of course Wikipedia leading the fight against Congress. Will this big-name support end up in a victory for the majority?
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