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Wikipedia Still Set For Full Blackout Wednesday

Posted by Unknown on from the sopa-never-forget-never-relent dept.

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.

15 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Chicken! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Chicken! by jcreus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In fact, Jimbo Wales — founder of Wikipedia — kindly warned students yesterday.

    2. Re:Chicken! by delinear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Chicken! by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Informative

      Even blocking domains is enough to cause massive damage: most sites outside USA still use .org, .com and .net, especially in English speaking countries.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  2. A Personal Appeal From Jimmy Wales by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry, I couldn't resist.

  3. Re:I wonder... by jcreus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't think so. Beginning at 04:50 AM, thousands of millions of people (mostly students) will be reloading the Wikipedia main page at a rate of 60 times per minute, 25 million people. Kind of Slashdot effect!

  4. Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy. by damicatz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Murdoch by Tim4444 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Political reality by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Better print it out by shoppa · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  8. How to do the same on your site by John3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  9. Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy. by Sparx139 · · Score: 5, Informative
    To quote the wiki page:

    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. For example, one British editor stated "American law is America's business, but law that affects Wikipedia worldwide is an issue of worldwide interest", a principle we felt had considerable support.

    --
    Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
  10. Re:Here is a blackout page suggestion: by Mabhatter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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".

  11. Re:Thanks a buttload, Chet... by smagruder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
  12. Go Global, STOP ACTA by hemo_jr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.