Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced through a tweet today that Wikipedia’s English Version would on Wednesday, 18th January go offline for 24hrs in Protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
“@Jimmy_Wales. Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa” –Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder on TwitterThe SOPA act stipulates that internet resources in America found to offer pirated content, along with the services that they use, could be hidden from US internet users by being delisted on search engines and potentially on DNS servers themselves. The SOPA act was introduced in the US House of Representatives by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar Smith.
A statement on every page of the website reads as of the composing of this article:
‘Please note: In less than 20 hours, the English Wikipedia will be blacked out globally to protest SOPA and PIPA.‘
Other websites that are set to follow suit include Reddit and Gaming website Destructoid. While the idea of Facebook, Google, WordPress and Twitter joining the protest is nearly absurd, various actions such as the posting of events to support the protest will be encouraged. Google has also been urged to post a censored logo with SOPA information.
