Wikipedia to Join Web Blackout Protesting SOPA

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It looks like Wikipedia will go dark on Wednesday to protest of SOPA and Protect IP. Who is next?

Calling it a "decision of the Wikipedia community," Wales said he plans to join other Web sites in ceasing operations to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, a controversial antipiracy bill being debated in Congress. "Final details under consideration but consensus seems to be for 'full' rather than 'soft' blackout!"
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Are you planning to blackout the HardForums, since they could be affected by the new laws? (not necessarily the main site, since you have different TLDs, and there's no user generated content on the main site).
 
I hope all the major players shut down, such as wiki, google, bing, as a matter of fact all the search engines. and see if congress can handle a blackout of the net.
 
Frankly I would be game for the entire internet shutting down for the day (if it were at all possible) in protest.
 
Well, that should limit the trolls in multiple forums who try to start a debate with people by using wikipedia as their facts. I shall dub it " Troll Free Wednesday " :).
 
No need for a Blackout anymore, at least not for SOPA.

"House Kills SOPA"

But there is still PIPA, "(the Senate's version of SOPA)".
 
is Wikileaks joining the anti-SOPA fray as well? ;)

It'd be hilariously hypocritical of them if they didn't.
 
I don't get what these guys think it's going to accomplish, shutting down their own sites for a day?

Seems like a hallow gesture, not like they'll permanently shut themselves down forever if SOPA or Protect IP pass (one seems dead already now).

So it just inconveniences regular folks that use the sites. Listening to these politicians talk, I feel pretty confident they don't Wiki or Google anything anyway, so they won't notice. :)
 
Ravynmagi said:
I don't get what these guys think it's going to accomplish, shutting down their own sites for a day?

Seems like a hallow gesture, not like they'll permanently shut themselves down forever if SOPA or Protect IP pass (one seems dead already now).

So it just inconveniences regular folks that use the sites. Listening to these politicians talk, I feel pretty confident they don't Wiki or Google anything anyway, so they won't notice. :)
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It's to promote awareness of the dangers posed by legislation being considered by our government. Most "normal" people probably have no idea what is going on. If a large portion of the internet shuts down for a day in protest, a lot more people will.
 
Ravynmagi said:
I don't get what these guys think it's going to accomplish, shutting down their own sites for a day?

Seems like a hallow gesture, not like they'll permanently shut themselves down forever if SOPA or Protect IP pass (one seems dead already now).

So it just inconveniences regular folks that use the sites. Listening to these politicians talk, I feel pretty confident they don't Wiki or Google anything anyway, so they won't notice. :)
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You're not quite getting the point then. It's absolutely to inconvenience 'regular folk', because those are the ones who vote for the politicians who are in charge of voting on this bill. And when said politicians offices are buried in hate mail, it will influence them to either change or harden their stance against this bill.
 
SOLIDARITY.

No this is FAR from over and must continue.
Not after the poison that Rupert Murdock spit out this morning, condemning the Obama administration for not supporting SOPA. So this guy thinking hes above the government, says the government is full of thieves for not supporting his NAZI bill that gives them carte blanche, with no law enforcement oversight, do shut down any site that COULD be infringing copyrighted material.

As if it couldn't be more obvious who are the traitors to this country. Wake up people, CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE. (No matter what Mitt Romney keeps saying. That should tell you something too.)

http://www.google.com/search?client...rceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

This is FAR from over.
 
A friend of mine got a response from the White House when he signed the online petition against this nonsense.. In summary, it basically said that while they agree that the current bill is too much, they are also convinced that something needs to be done and will be done.. It said something like protecting the US from foreign sites that deal in piracy is in order, they just need to be careful about how they do it. I think it is way lame all around. Keeping the internet free and open should not even be up for discussion...
 
It's going to get word out of what exactly SOPA stands for, and the more people know, the more people will make their opinions known. I hope Google and Facebook do what Wikipedia does, and stand up for what they have said repeatedly they are against. That'll make people wake up and realize what legislators (rather the lobbiest groups in this case) are proposing.

Absolutely, something needs to be done about piracy, but not like how SOPA wants it done. I'm glad the DNS portion was removed as it was pretty obvious it was much to vague and ripe for abuse.
 
I think I side more with Twitter's CEO on this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/16/wikipedia-sopa-blackout-slammed-twitter

"Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish."

I'm against SOPA tpp. But there is a deluge of information available and reported on the subject and people are already doing a pretty good job voicing the opposition to it. Closing down some big websites to draw attention to the issue seems completely unnecessary and unproductive.

I just don't see Wikipedia being down a day to really make a difference. And I don't think this is the first time Jimmy Wales has talked about shutting his website down over some political issue. And that kinda worries me.
 
Ravynmagi said:
I think I side more with Twitter's CEO on this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/16/wikipedia-sopa-blackout-slammed-twitter

"Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish."

I'm against SOPA tpp. But there is a deluge of information available and reported on the subject and people are already doing a pretty good job voicing the opposition to it. Closing down some big websites to draw attention to the issue seems completely unnecessary and unproductive.

I just don't see Wikipedia being down a day to really make a difference. And I don't think this is the first time Jimmy Wales has talked about shutting his website down over some political issue. And that kinda worries me.
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The twitter boss is an ignorant fool.
If the issue DIRECTLY effects YOUR business, no its not foolish. What a pretentious idiot, doesn't even understand whats going on around him. And really, you dont think wikipedia being down wont make a difference? 25 MILLION use it DAILY. Yes it will make a difference, people will want to know why its down, and will find out about SOPA. I'ts exactly what they want to do. Twitter boss, Dick, apparently cant grasp that.
 
FrostBite said:
It's going to get word out of what exactly SOPA stands for, and the more people know, the more people will make their opinions known. I hope Google and Facebook do what Wikipedia does, and stand up for what they have said repeatedly they are against. That'll make people wake up and realize what legislators (rather the lobbiest groups in this case) are proposing.

Absolutely, something needs to be done about piracy, but not like how SOPA wants it done. I'm glad the DNS portion was removed as it was pretty obvious it was much to vague and ripe for abuse.
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Have an idea, why don't millions of facebook users discuss how to get copyrighted material, and see if facebook gets shut down or any other social site for that matter, that should really raise an awareness from the general population.
 
What I wanna see is all the gov't sites go dark, especially the ones that the gov't NEEDS. And of course those that are opposed to SOPA. :p
Not that it'd ever happen, just saying I'd like to see it happen.
 
I'm definitely anti-SOPA/PIPA but I continue to have concerns that this blackout tactic could backfire in any number of ways. Law of unintended consequences, etc., especially with this government.
 
Q-BZ said:
I'm definitely anti-SOPA/PIPA but I continue to have concerns that this blackout tactic could backfire in any number of ways. Law of unintended consequences, etc., especially with this government.
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I'm more worried that if nobody takes a stand worse things will keep on coming. :(
 
The point of the blackout is to increase awareness. All they have to do on the blackout is say "We have shut down due to the SOPA/PIPA bills in the house/senate". THe folowing day there will be a massive flood of research. Considering all the negativity on this bill, any searches for it will be based upon anti SOPA/PIPA notions. Even my mother would be looking this up and probably calling me saying "what is the SOPA/PIPA thing".
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
I'm more worried that if nobody takes a stand worse things will keep on coming. :(
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It's going to happen anyways staring next year when the elections are done and very likely Obama is re-elected.


My concern is: They do a stunt like this and it just gives certain types of politicians...which a lot of these protestors will keep voting for...all the excuse they need to come out with rheoric like: "We can't let these corporations hold us and hold the Internet hostage again" etc. etc.

Folks, stop voting for communists and fascists, Rs or Ds. That's how you stop crap like this.
 
Uncle said:
I hope all the major players shut down, such as wiki, google, bing, as a matter of fact all the search engines. and see if congress can handle a blackout of the net.
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Imagine if Google participated in it. :eek:
 
If Google did it, they should do this way: Every time you do a search, before it brings your results, you have a choice between clicking "Agree" that you protest the SOPA/PIPA legislation and going forward with your results, or click "Don't Agree" and it sends you to a blank page or something. That way Google has billions of IPs in support of destroying the bill.
 
Blown 89 said:
I agree. Living without the internet for one day would do a lot of people good.
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This.

Q-BZ said:
It's going to happen anyways staring next year when the elections are done and very likely Obama is re-elected.


My concern is: They do a stunt like this and it just gives certain types of politicians...which a lot of these protestors will keep voting for...all the excuse they need to come out with rheoric like: "We can't let these corporations hold us and hold the Internet hostage again" etc. etc.

Folks, stop voting for communists and fascists, Rs or Ds. That's how you stop crap like this.
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I don't want to drag this into the political but I really don't think it will matter who wins, this will keep coming. I'm sure if someone has a better idea for how to deal with this it would be welcome, but I don't see that coming.
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
I'm more worried that if nobody takes a stand worse things will keep on coming. :(
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Internet is uncontrollable actually, there are no ways to shut it down or disable. I'm glad about it otherwise because if not than for sure someone would maybe hit the kill switch.
 
I noticed Google and a few other websites I frequent blacking out their respective logos and having a link to stop SOPA. :cool:

This is pretty encouraging:
On January 17 a Republican aide on Capitol Hill said that the protests were making their mark, with SOPA having already become "a dirty word beyond anything you can imagine."[144]
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Marco Rubio has withdrawn his support. Hopefully my esteemed senator Harry Reid will follow.
 
I'm using notscripts in chrome so I didn't even initially see the wiki blackout hit page when it went live :D. Maybe this should also be a lesson to people for practicing safe(er) interweb browsing by controlling what java scripts they allow to run. I think stopping the spread of ITDs is as important as stopping SOPA or PIPA.
 
WorldExclusive said:
Thank you for that update. I was just about to call Rubio's Senate Office.
I'll keep up with him to see if anything changes.
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That's awesome! I actually JUST sent a letter to Rubio telling him I was disappointed in him being a supporter.
 
shoota said:
That's awesome! I actually JUST sent a letter to Rubio telling him I was disappointed in him being a supporter.
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I just called my local Rep. but she hasn't made a decision yet but Bill Nelson supports it :mad:.
If Bill is up for election this year, his time is up.
 
Uncle said:
Have an idea, why don't millions of facebook users discuss how to get copyrighted material, and see if facebook gets shut down or any other social site for that matter, that should really raise an awareness from the general population.
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Actually this is the type of thing that it will probably take - going in the opposite direction. This is a war of interests that will not be won until average people see the Web sites they enjoy using being shut down by a corporate owned government. Until average, witless people are forced to suffer or be inconvenienced because big business profit margins must be maintained at all cost, corporate interests and their lackey government are going to continue on with this march toward intertubes censorship and domination.

It's really quite like these tyrannical security state laws that the U.S. is implementing - until a few white girls are disappeared and tortured no one will really give a shit. Americans are idiots who have completely bought into the phrases "if you aren't committing any crimes then you have nothing to worry about" and "you don't have any civil liberties if you are dead."

Yeah, and "anti-piracy measures" will only effect the pirates.

THIS particular little battle might be won and the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills might be stopped but the powers-that-be are never going to stop pushing. At some point there will be some law passed in the dead of night attached to another bill if need be. Short of significant change to our political system and culture, there just isn't any way of truly stopping shit like this because the political system we live under (Inverted totalitarian Kleptocracy) doesn't truly care about the wishes of the masses. "We, the people" aren't who the government serves.
 
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