Wikipedia’s community calls for anti-SOPA blackout January 18 Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States —the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECTIP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate— that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. 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. But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not.
The Web to Go Black to Protest Censorship Bills National Security Notice We are NOT calling for the overthrow of the government. In fact, we are calling for the reinstatement of our government. We are not calling for lawlessness. Rather than trying to subvert the constitution, we are calling for its enforcement. We are patriotic Americans born and raised in this country. We don't support or like Al Qaeda, the Taliban or any supporting groups. The nation's top legal scholars say that draconian security laws which violate the Constitution should not apply to Americans. Should you attempt to shut down this site or harass its authors, you are anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-American ... and undermining America's national security. Copyright Notice This site provides political commentary, education and parody protected by the fair use and My Lai/Zapruder exceptions to copyright law. We are not copyright pirates. Even the country's top copyright lawyers oppose draconian anti-piracy laws.
Anonymous - Google+ - *STOP #SOPA #SOPAblackout #J18 * The internet is gearing… *STOP #SOPA #SOPAblackout #J18 * The internet is gearing up for a fight, several sites have pledged to go dark on January 18 in protest of SOPA and PIPA, the internet blacklist legislation currently making their way through Congress. Below is a list of confirmed sites joining in : 1. Reddit.com 2.
Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation Reddit goes black Jan. 18 to protest SOPA & PIPA — Who else will join? Community news sharing site Reddit is planning to shut down its website January 18 in protest of proposed legislation the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as well as the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), the company announced via a blog post today. SOPA gives both the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating and/or counterfeiting intellectual property. Should SOPA (or PIPA) pass, it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. For instance, if a website is accused of containing copyright-infringing content (such as a song, picture or video clip), the site could be blocked by ISPs, de-indexed from search engines and even prevented from doing business online. Reddit’s blackout will run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The black out is definitely a bold move for Reddit, but the site’s organized protest is also very significant. Who else should join the blackout?
Stop American Censorship Can we get a list of all the websites confirmed to go dark? : SOPA Google Plans Home Page Protest Against U.S. Piracy Legislation Measures Google Inc. (GOOG) will place a link on its home page tomorrow protesting anti-piracy measures in the U.S. Congress, joining other Internet companies demonstrating against the Hollywood-backed legislation. Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, and Facebook Inc. are among companies opposing House and Senate bills they say they will hurt the growth of the U.S. technology industry. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia where users contribute entries, said it will shut the English version of its website for 24 hours tomorrow to protest the measures. “We oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” Samantha Smith, a Google spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today. The Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate are backed by the movie and music industries as a means to crack down on the sale of counterfeit goods by non-U.S. websites. Vote Pending
Twitter's Dick Costolo calls Wikipedia SOPA blackout 'foolish' Updated with more information below the post. We’ve already reported on Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales announcing that the site will be going dark, effectively closing up for business, for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Well, after being goaded about whether Twitter would be joining in protest with a blackout as well, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo responded by saying that the decision was foolish. @digiphile @jayrosen_nyu that’s just silly. Costolo was replying to a Tweet from Radar correspondent Alex Howard that queried whether Twitter’s Costolo, Google’s Eric Schmidt or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg would have the ‘cojones’ to follow in Wikipedia’s protesting footsteps. Costolo called the comment silly in his Tweet, pointing out that a local issue, even one as willfully stupid as SOPA was no reason to ‘close’ a global business for any length of time. @digiphile @anildash We have been very active and will continue to be very active.
Why Banks Back SOPA, the “Bring the Chinese Internet to America” Bill Although lots of technology-related sites are correctly up in arms about the Stop Online Piracy Act, the MSM has given it short shrift, and the financial blogosphere has not paid much attention (cross posts of some of George Washington articles being a welcome exception). SOPA and PIPA (Protect IP Act) use nuclear-weapon-to-kill-a-mouse scale solutions to Internet piracy. David Carr in the New York Times, in an rather anodyne article given what is at stake, gave an overview of what is wrong with the bills, namely, a lot. Even if you accept the proponents’ dubious claims about the losses from “rouge” foreign websites ($58 billion!), the bills probably won’t fix that problem and will create a host of new ones. Despite assertions that it would create jobs, it would actually deter technology startups, undermine scientific journals, and could fragment the Internet domain name system. I wanted to call out one key point that was really made clear by an amendment offered by Rep.
Boing Boing will go dark on Jan 18 to fight SOPA & PIPA On January 18, Boing Boing will join Reddit and other sites around the Internet in "going dark" to oppose SOPA and PIPA, the pending US legislation that creates a punishing Internet censorship regime and exports it to the rest of the world. Boing Boing could never co-exist with a SOPA world: we could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor. But you know what? Thank you.