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Wikipedia Still Set For Full Blackout Wednesday
symbolset writes "Jimmy Wales confirms that the entire English language Wikipedia will be on blackout January 18th from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. The site's 25 million daily users will redirected to an education page with a call to action. Votes are still being taken on the exact implementation."
Despite a small victory against SOPA in the House, Wikipedia still feels the blackout is necessary due to the looming Senate vote on PROTECT IP, and as a deterrent to future attempts to revive a similar law under a new name.
Shut it down for a week and you'll be able to almost hear the roar of a billion college students having their term papers failed!
The best laws money can buy
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
...if the difference in used bandwidth will save Wikipedia a few bucks.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Theyll try to buy a new law when the dust settles. the only way to fix this, is to go on constant offensive, and buy lawmakers and laws FOR the internet, and to prevent content industry from buying laws AGAINST it.
Read radical news here
I'll get around to writing to my senator right away. What? England isn't represented in the senate???
No Blackout Without Representation! Or... something...
Because English is only spoken in the USA, of course.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
I believe this must be the largest virtual protest ever made. It will affect what, 20 million persons? I hope this is enough to get the regular public to know about this law.
I suppose now Murdoch will accuse Wikipedia of being a "piracy leader" along with Google. After all, Wikipedia just serves up other people's content and takes money (what they call "donations") for it.
Politicians, welcome, I would like you to meet reality. His name is the Sheep With Gun and he is going on strike.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
I'm going to start printing out Wikipedia today.
I figure I'll be done by Tuesday night.
If anyone needs something looked up on Wednesday, give me a call.
Wouldn't mind them helping with awareness of the RWA, where publishers are basically trying to make public access policies illegal. Read more here.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Probably been posted already on a prior thread, but if you want to support the blackout on your website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc. there is useful info here.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
that's why google, amazon et al need to do it.
Read radical news here
Okay so they'll still shut it down as a political protest.
As a non-US citizen I can't really influence US laws anyway.
Now as the US tries to push these laws on other countries how much more often will they turn off wikipedia?
These laws will not stop, and they'll push them continuously, are they going to turn off wikipedia for every one?
Is there a non political wikipedia or a mirror that won't be arbitrarily shut down?
I can tell you I definitely won't be contributing cash when they do things that harm their supporters, yet do NOTHING to actually stop the guys causing the problems.
...and not a single High School project will be completed that day.
Could you shut down the Disney site as The Lion King is a copy of Kimba?
Please. Jimmy, just accept victory and move on. But I guess we should expect little else from someone who plasters their picture in the header of their website.
With all the sites going dark tomorrow, my work production will see a marked rise.
I'm all for calling attention to stupid legislation, but causing major inconvenience to me just angers me against you. I think a full blackout against reading the site is just BS. Just make everyone do a couple of extra clicks to get to the content and call it good. I suppose I'll brush up on my French in case I need to look something up that day.
-Xen
Every time such law is successfully fought, it comes back under another name.
We should go further : ask for a law that protects DNSs and internet freedom. Even a constitutional amendment, why not ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
It's only Wikipedia. Frankly, I'd like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google to all shut down for a week in protest. Then people might get some fucking work done, and if they want to learn something they might go to a reference book and get something that's at least been researched, rather than relying on Wikipedia's self-appointed "experts" or having to filter the drivel that Google spits out. And, in the meantime, office productivity would skyrocket, which would make a small contribution to dragging our economies out of the mire.
So we just take the next largest Wikipedia, say the French or German one, and run it through Google Translate.
"God does not play Minecraft with the world." - Albert Einstein
What we need to do is take back our republic from the 1%.
It's the highly-paid top marketing minds, political functionaries, spin doctors and government job lifers who conceived of the so-called "1%/99%" dichotomy and wrote all the slogans and seeded the memes that the deluded unwashed of the "Occupy" movement have been made to believe are their own. It's designed to allow Obama -- the candidate deepest in the pocket of the Content Industry -- to play an effective class warfare card in the pending election and defeat the Gordon-Gecko-esque Romney.
Stop being a tool.
I wish these sites would limit the black-out to US users instead of making it a blanket black-out. Yes, I know SOPA and its ilk would affect everyone, but as a non-US citizen, there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop it.
If Google were to be awesome and join the blackout, everyone would get the message. Wikipedia and Reddit get a lot of traffic, but Google gets pretty much everyone else.
That's what I plan on doing tomorrow.
That's a lot of time where I could have been deleting other people's efforts. :(
- A Proud Wikipedia Editor
I haven't given any money to Wikipedia in a long time. This seems like a good opportunity to catch up on my donations. I figure to do it while the blackout is in progress, if the donation page is up, or right after if they have donations blacked out.
It is easy to find examples of people getting paid to do things that harm society. Here's a chance to pay a company, which has earned the money, for doing the right thing. They even make the first show of good faith -- every day -- by existing, not charging, and not accepting advertisements.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
nothing of value was lost.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Who's the tool, tool?
Its only class warfare when we fight back, Renfield.
Would love to see more sites jump on this. Slashdot, Digg, and can you imagine if Google did?
If not, please consider it.
huh ? if 0.1% of the society controls everything, buys laws, protects their interests while keeping the rest down for their own profit, it means there IS a class warfare and the majority is losing it.
the same kind of thing was being done with british monarchy back in 1774. why did you revolt against them. why didnt you say 'its class warfare ! we should stay united !' ?
the monarch and its immediate lower hierarchy was just enforcing their rightful share out of your economy through taxes.
the top 5% of america takes 70% out of your economy, even before taxes.
so if the crown did not take 70% of your economy through taxes, but instead did it through corporate and shareholder/fund ownership schemes, you were not going to revolt ?
get real. see things for what they are.
Read radical news here
What we need to do is take back our republic from the 1%.
It's the highly-paid top marketing minds, political functionaries, spin doctors and government job lifers who conceived of the so-called "1%/99%" dichotomy and wrote all the slogans and seeded the memes that the deluded unwashed of the "Occupy" movement have been made to believe are their own. It's designed to allow Obama -- the candidate deepest in the pocket of the Content Industry -- to play an effective class warfare card in the pending election and defeat the Gordon-Gecko-esque Romney.
Stop being a tool.
Do you have any evidence of that at all? Maybe AdBusters dreamed the idea up, but they are hardly highly paid top marketing types. They can barely market themselves. Where I live, the occupy group seems local. It was inspired by occupy Wall Street etc. but everything I have seen about the local activities makes me think the the occupy movement gave local folks a focus for a lot of existing concerns. Even if the spin doctors might have invented the memes, they lost control of them.
What's the last resort if these protests ultimately prove fruitless? Can anyone see the likes of Google and Wikipedia moving their businesses abroad?
The voting was closed last evening and the community decision was announced.
You can tell when it's closed by it all being boxed in, with a gray background, and the message "The discussion above is closed." appearing at the bottom.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I read Protect IP and thought "someone's trying to save the Internet Protocol?". Obviously...
Can you really have well protected Intellectual Property keeping a fully free Internet?
Can you really have a fully free Internet that protects people's Intellectual Property?
Joining in on this effort?
I understand the incentives for this sort of action, but bear in mind that this sort of "going dark" is the result of a conscious decision by participants such as Wikipedia, and not a direct ramification of the actual passing of this bill. It's a peaceful protest that will probably inconvenience a lot of people, and might even gather significant publicity, but I fear is likely to only be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate the Senate to further a particular agenda, rather than awaken anyone to the real problems with the bill, simply because so few people really understand the principles that make the bill a bad idea from the outset.
"Going dark" is much more likely to be viewed as akin to throwing a temper tantrum because one is not getting their way than it is any sort of sincere attempt to awaken anybody to the problems that this bill actually presents.... because I really can't see that it will.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Just another excuse my ISP will make when I call them up to see why my internet is down -- "it's a protest against SOPA." Sounds funny but the chances of this actually happening are not as slim as one would like them to be.
I hope that the success against ACTA/PIPA will inspire further action that will lead to the repudiation of the ACTA treaty, which has already been signed by the administration and which is the source and inspiration for the SOPA/PIPA legislation in the U.S. Congress.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote
No, liberty is when voting to employ coercion against other human beings is illegal. It is the very concept of "majority defines morality" that is evil.
Many countries, including the U.S., have signed the ACTA treaty - the source and inspiration for SOPA/PIPA. So if there is a global symbol of the attempt to censor the Internet, it is the ACTA treaty. The US has already signed this and is using various, mostly economic, means to pressure other countries to sign as well. The U.S. administration needs to stop pushing ACTA on to other countries and repudiate it for the attack on freedom that it is.
Who is John Galt?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Just use google cache.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. When groups like Wikipedia and Google and Facebook and Twitter all go on to do this blackout thing, all arguments in favor of the people go out the window, because it becomes an industry vs industry battle. Even though we the people and the aforementioned groups are opposed to SOPA/PIPA, we are not on the same side - they have their own interests, and while some of them may or may not coincide with ours, our own interests are not being represented when they do this.
When the blackout happens, the government will just see it as a battle between the industries, and it will render the lay peoples' arguments inaudible. If PIPA gets shut down as a reaction to Wikipedia et al, it will be seen as a victory for them, not a victory for us. We will celebrate, sure, but the government and supporters won't be any closer to understanding the part we played and how drastically it would have affected us on a fundamental level had it passed; they'll be just as tempted to introduce new legislation later on until they eventually get their way. Remember, corporations and industries aren't afraid of each other, they are afraid of informed voters.
As for the "educational" prospect of what Wikipedia et al are doing, convincing people who don't understand what's going on into rallying against SOPA/PIPA just by shutting down important websites is not really a fair tactic, and they won't be educated so much as enraged and desperate to reach any solution that would bring it back. You could shut down Facebook and put a message on there that people need to run through the streets naked to bring it back, and the United States would become a nudist nation overnight. While education is certainly important, we need to educate each other with fair and open discussion and debate, not with scare tactics from groups which have their own separate interests in mind. That's not to say that the information Wikipedia and others will post isn't going to be accurate or true, or that the information and commercials being fed to the public by SOPA/PIPA supporters isn't a load of bunk, but all of that can be posted on these websites without actually shutting down the services - the blackouts themselves are specifically designed to elicit an emotional response, not a rational one, and that's not the kind of tactic we want to employ or endorse.
While it's nice to have some big name support, this is our battle which we need to win on our own, and we should really encourage Wikipedia and others not to go through with this blackout plan.
Awesome move and sure to provoke folks into action. It's laws such as SOPA and IP that endanger (to the benefit of the rich, powerful, greedy and powerful)
the average joe from getting content unfiltered, uncensored, and in RAW format.
Look at what our TV and radio have turned into - controlled by the largest of media corporations, we feed that monster billions each year and have no
control over what is delivered.
KUDOS to Wikipedia!!!
Well, actually
Citizens United became a front group for giant corporations, both within and without the United States when our Supreme Court decided, as Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people, too." And thus, they have a right to free speech. And that right ought not to be abridged, especially in politics (except we do abridge individuals right of freedom of speech by calling it a "verbal act.").
This is wholesale misuse of the 14th Amendment, which was actually written to give persons of African and non-European ancestry full citizenship in the US. It has been interpreted by people who ought to have their heads examined as "Corporations are people, too and, because there are more people, they are deserving of extra protection.
Of course, in their infinite wisdom, our Supreme Court did not consider the fact that many big Corporations are multinational now and, since they are permitted to use any amount of their money for "free speech," much of that money can come from overseas.
Which suggests, for example, that Ron Paul's SuperPAC is actually run by Iran, who would really like for the United States to be ultra-isolationist. I'm not in possession of any certain knowledge that it is, but since there are no laws requiring any reporting and since Ron Paul did vote to prevent any reporting, this makes him suspect.
So Citizens United might have initially been a well-intentioned group, but it has morphed into the single worse Supreme Court Decision in this country since the Dred Scott Case.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
As I've already posted here...
WARNING: This is a protest against SOPA and its Nazi-style fascism. You must understand what we are protesting about to proceed.
[ ] Get me out of here!
[ ] Tell me more about SOPA
[x] Yes, I am over 18
Which suggests, for example, that Ron Paul's SuperPAC is actually run by Iran, who would really like for the United States to be ultra-isolationist. I'm not in possession of any certain knowledge that it is, but since there are no laws requiring any reporting and since Ron Paul did vote to prevent any reporting, this makes him suspect.
Expert trolls on Slashdot?
Well there's that 2006 documentary, the "The One Percent" made by some wealthy heir.
And Dan Rather reported that Priscilla Grim was the person that started the tumbler blog "We are the 99%", but that might have been him talking out of his ass. And even then, I wouldn't exactly peg her as a "highly paid top marketing mind".
But the idea of income disparity has been around forever, and the people on the ground have certainly taken the slogan and ran with it.
But if you give his sort even the slightest excuse for blaming the whole OWS movement on political insiders he'll latch onto that and never give it up no matter what argument or evidence you put forth. Foxnews has told him to despise Obama, and that's what he's going to do.
"Best yet, it would make it nearly impossible for the MSM to ignore the blackout/SOPA/PIPA. Then watch as they tiptoe around the elephant in the living room: why they haven't been covering SOPA/PIPA up until this point."
Hey everyone, between the post above and the slightly typo'ed article below, they just told us how to really beat these bills.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php
Key quote:
"The legislation ran into an even more significant problem yesterday when the White House announced its opposition to the bills. ... ...
Until now, the Obama administration had not taken a position on the issue.
Though the administration did not issue a formal veto threat, the White Houseâ(TM)s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form."
So (sorta) forget your fifth-grade teacher's advice to write to congress. (Mods, that's rhetoric, not literal.) Though the exact timing is a little fuzzy, here's how it really worked:
1. Mainstream Media ignores the issue, because the bill is in its favor.
2. Grassroots movement to excite the Big Players.
3. Big Players excite the general public.
4. Listen to what the President is *not saying*.
5. Tell the *President* (via staff etc) that *he or his party* will not get re-elected if he signs the bill!
6. President issues veto threat. MainStream Media *has to report on the President* (usually!)
7. Bill dies because it's a dare that it would require an Over-ride.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I wish the rest of the pledged websites would go ahead and do the blackout as scheduled.. This is NOT a win, its only a delay.. You can bet your bottom dollar, the bill will be back under a different name, with possibly worse aspects to it than SOPA/PIPA. These crooks will not give up until either the American people bitchslap them silly (who AM I kidding...) or until they destroy the Internet as it is today...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Will slashdot join this protest?
There are a lot of comments on how this won't get any point across to most people other than "WTF mate? Oh God dammit I don't give a shit". I'm not so sure about that. There are plenty of people with strong ideals who would vehemently oppose SOPA/PIPA if only the issue ended up on their plate. Sure you can say that "if they had strong ideals they would have been paying attention in the first place" but that's just an empty attack on those people. There are A LOT of a good, honest, intelligent people that are naive about what goes in politics. These are the people that are on political cruise-control.
Again the operative word is naive. A lack of knowledge about SOPA/PIPA/NDAA/etc. does NOT mean a person is completely complacent. Just let them know what their representatives are ACTUALLY trying to do and they'll outrage.
I have a better idea. Inflict the Internet Death Penalty on the US government. Refuse to accept any TCP/IP traffic coming from any IPV4 or IPV6 address assigned to the US government or any corporation holding US government contracts. When a government fucks with the internet, ram the consequences down their fucking throats!
Ah yes, but see, the "90%" have this magical thing called the "vote."
Too many people, especially people who do not use the Internet daily, vote based on what they hear in MPAA-controlled media.
The Supreme Court also failed to consider that Corporations are legal entities only because Congress passed a law saying they were (USC 1). So they basically told Congress "you have the power to create it, but you don't have the power to regulate it". Which makes no sense at all.
Comcast is the majority owner of Universal City Studios, a movie studio in the MPAA. For a lot of people living in Comcast territory, it's often a choice between Xfinity Internet and dial-up. Have you tips for making the most efficient use of a dial-up connection now that most modern web sites are tuned for broadband?
Google could afford to buy the entire music industry.
The music industry consists of Vivendi SA (Euronext: VIV; market cap: $20 billion), Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE; market cap: $17 billion), and Access Industries (private). Buying all three would probably smack of anticompetitive behavior under more than one country's antitrust law.
Do we call you to submit changes too?
I believe that we should work to elevate all Americans into the top 1%. :)
None of us should have to live in the lower 99%!!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The one thing more powerful for elected officials than bribes (campaign donations), is fear of losing the next election. So contact the bill sponsors, and let them know why you will be voting for/sending money to/campaigning for their opponent. Do that even if the bills die in this congressional session. They need to be spanked, hard, for ever supporting this kind of bill, so the next time big media comes around (and they will, you know they will) they will remember this is a politically life threatening topic.
It's either that, or nuke them from orbit, it's the only ways to be sure.
A personal appeal from Wikipedia vandal MJWX
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Way to go guys.
You didn't actually block access. From the looks of it you just used javascript to load a blackout page post load.
So if you just simply disable javascript the full english site over at wikipedia seems to work just fine. Not sure how long that will last though after people like myself begin posting about it. Just thought I would share.
In your browser of choice, disable JavaScript. It's that simple.
Add the following URL to AddblockPlus (with http, not hxxp).
hxxp://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:BannerLoader&banner=blackout*
Since you're needing this comment, you're already aware of SOPA and you want to use wikipedia today. Also, pass it on to anyone who complains. They're aware of SOPA and they get to learn about how they'll need to use obnoxious technological workarounds to legislative damage.
Also, today's a great day for creative wiki editing.
Actually editing is blocked:
From the faq:
How is the blackout implemented?
The read access blackout is implemented by means of a CentralNotice "banner" which overlays the entire page after being loaded (it does not have a clickthrough back to the page). Some whitelisted pages are exempted.
The JavaScript code for the CentralNotice implementation can be seen here and can be previewed here. Messaging and functionality is subject to change.
The write access blackout is implemented by means of setting $wgGroupPermissions to the edit right for all users to false. This means all users will get a permission denied error after attempting to edit.
My noscript, by default, blocks wikimedia.org, and I saw no blackout at all until I disabled noscript. Lame. They should have really done the blackout instead of a script from a different domain.
The USA has the best politicians money can buy! :(
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
The mobile site is still active and usable. I would hardly call it a "full" outage.
Such a lame-ly (is that a word?) engineered blackout. You can still access every page on wikipedia by just hitting the stop button on your browser just as the page loads...
Hello everybody, I play a HUMAN on TV...
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.