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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.
In fact, Jimbo Wales — founder of Wikipedia — kindly warned students yesterday.
A better one....
This is exactly how much content will be left when every publisher and celebrity makes up a reason to force Wikipedia to take down their pages.
Wikipedia has cleaned up its copyright problems... But it could never have been created in the enviroent about to be unleashed.
Maybe that is the argument to make:
List every large tech company that violated the hell out of IP laws they want to impose on everybody else. Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, etc could all have been kicked off the Internet (if we had the Internet) when they were "growing up".
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.