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.

Comments

Chicken!

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Chicken!

[delinear]

You don't think SOPA/PIPA will affect you if you live outside the USA? This kind of policy has a tendency to spread to other countries with like-minded politicians. I'm in the UK and my only wish was that more big tech companies would follow suit (imagine if Twitter, Facebook, even Google all turned their services off for the day). We hear it time and again that the ordinary man in the street doesn't know or understand about these issues - well maybe this is the best way to get the message across.

Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy.

[damicatz]

The primary reason for creating SOPA and PIPA is to get around the pesky inconvenience of having to deal with all those other countries and their own sets of laws. Because the US controls .com, .net, and .org as well as having both IANA and ICANN, big media could simply use the courts they have bought here in the US without having to deal with that annoying inconvenience of other sovereign nations and their own sets of laws.

Murdoch

[Tim4444]

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.

Political reality

[EmperorOfCanada]

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.

Re:Thanks a buttload, Chet...

[smagruder]

You can take out your anger on me. I'm one of the Wikipedians who said Strong Support for a hard global blackout. I'm sorry that you're inconvenienced, but THAT'S THE POINT.