Wikipedia To Turn Black In Protest Against SOPA And PIPA


Wikipedia, one of the largest open-source encyclopedia or technically, a KMS (Knowledge Management System) and its community has decided to black out the English version of the site worldwide for 24 hours (less than 21 hours to go by the time of this writing) in protest against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).

A leaderboard banner in the wikipedia.org site
It's the first time that the site will be stepped out to go for a public protest against two house bills and the decision was not easily raised. In the official statement released by Wikimedia, Sue Gardner, Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation said the decision wasn't made by himself but by the Wikipedians who have participated in a consensus decision-making who eventually joined together to encourage greater public support and actions in response to these bills.

The public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst writes:
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. 

SOPA and PIPA are proposed house bills in the United States that if implemented, expands U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeited goods.

Other sites, legislators, and prominent personalities that opposed SOPA are Reddit, Google, Yahoo and Internet pioneer Vint Cerf.

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19 Responses so far.

  1. Ian Onyot says:

    say NO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  2. Nancy says:

    I say NO to these two house bills as well. In fact I am thinking of designing an image to pose my personal protest against SOPA and PIPA.

  3. Unknown says:

    Freedom needs to be shared. Information not shared is not information at all.

  4. A great big step from Wikipedia to invite peopel to protest against SOPA and PIPA..I support Wikipedia!

  5. John says:

    I support Wikipedia all the way and beyond. I greatly appreciate the people behind this site because information is shared for free. How cool is that? Now they want to block it? No way!

  6. Noel says:

    information is all about the web.. what is the use of web if the information is not shared....

  7. chrisair says:

    I am so impressed with Wikipedia in fact many students rely on them, so if a greedy one reported that Wiki violate the laws then boom government will take them down

  8. Abetoy says:

    Speak up for that Nancy! Nice idea of yours

  9. Violy says:

    Information is supposed to be shared. I support Wikipedia on this. Say NO to these 2 house bills!

  10. knowledge is bound to be shared.. wag silang sakim.. let's support the protest!

  11. It was a good move and it seemed to have worked since we are getting the result we are fighting for.

  12. WTFiam?! says:

    sources have been applied in every article of wikipedia. no need to have these bills

  13. Yes, that's true. When SOPA is carried and becomes a law. it is "devastating to the free and open web." And there are many on this in the Net.

    RandomThoughts! of Gil Camporazo

  14. this is a drastic solution by the US which can always impinged on our right for freedom of information and free access of data.

  15. julie says:

    This is very sad. I hope they could find another solution about the piracy and stuffs but not to the extent of punishing the whole wide web.

  16. Juan Pak says:

    this page has been first source of information for most students and researchers.. they have help a lot of people.. well those bills are not for the sake of the people but of businessmen

  17. Marms says:

    Internet experts are against this bill. This should be trashed!

    Marms

  18. Faust says:

    good thing the sopa bill was pulled out and the backers also withdrawn their i'll advised so called anti piracy bill

  19. Kindly tell them freedom needs to be shared. So kindly change this bill.

    Regards,

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