[BryanXavier]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...Ke3P_blog.html

Posted at 03:18 PM ET, 01/16/2012
Wikipedia blackout coming Jan. 18, says co-founder Jimmy Wales
By T.J. Ortenzi
Wikipedia will black out its Web site on Wednesday to protest SOPA, a version of anti-piracy legislation that’s being considered by Congress.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement on Twitter on Monday, saying the site would shut down English versions of the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia at midnight Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday until midnight on Wednesday.

Jimmy Wales@jimmy_wales
I am just starting to do press interviews about the upcoming blackout of Wikipedia to protest #sopa and #pipa ("Protect IP").
16 Jan 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Wales called the move a “community decision.” He pointed to a page that was created to gauge support for a possible blackout. Users have until 6:59 p.m. today to weigh in on the decision.

Wales and other SOPA opponents hope to draw attention to language in SOPA that, according to some, is too broad and could hurt free speech and innovation.


Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. (AP) Wikipedia is not alone in its plans for a blackout. Reddit and the Cheezburger network that includes sites like The Daily What and Fail Blog also plan to shut down to protest SOPA. The document service Scribd already made a billion pages vanish. Craigslist boasts a notice on their frontpage saying “Stop SOPA and PIPA. [The bills] are
threatening Craigslist and
the rest of your
Internet. Most of
the web sites you use
strongly oppose these
bills.”

The online protests are changing the debate.

Over the weekend, the White House hinted that it would oppose the current version of the bill. And key sponsors are stepping away from its most controversial aspects.

If Wikipedia blacks out as promised, Wales expects an estimated 25 million daily visitors to be affected. His advice for students who might rely on the site: “Do your homework early.”

[DeeMarieGK]

Just saw this myself:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/...-SOPA_blackout
o: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012

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 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. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst:
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.
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. 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.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,
We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.
The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me — it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.
Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.
That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercialy motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place –many do!– but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.
My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA –and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States– don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?
The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation seeking to regulate the internet in other ways while hurting our online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.
Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

[DeeMarieGK]

I donated $50 bucks this last time, and donated to them the last time they asked for help!

[Pogrom]

If wikis scared about getting censored whats going to happen to DR?

[rapeWhistle]

Good.

[thissiteisfuckedup]

good on him, people should do this to BP and shell etc, everybody just not go to work, drive around or fill up,dont do anything until they stop ripping us off with severly overpriced fuel.

[ices]

Originally Posted by thissiteisfuckedup ↗

good on him, people should do this to BP and shell etc, everybody just not go to work, drive around or fill up,dont do anything until they stop ripping us off with severly overpriced fuel.

Meanwhile in the real world people need to eat, drink and provide for their families.

Oh and the companies who employ them wont really like a drop in numbers within their workforce.

Dont forget that we are in an recession and protests do not work when times are hard. It hurts the economy.

On the bright side, China will LOL all the way to its huge bank and scoff at us in the west for giving so much freedom to its people in the first place.

[johnleeknoefler]

Originally Posted by DeeMarieGK ↗

I donated $50 bucks this last time, and donated to them the last time they asked for help!

I still think they should monitize. They have space at the top to petition for funds, then why not advertise a worthy cause? It makes no sense to have such a narrow minded monastic view of making money.
And I was just going to post the blackout announcement here and see it's already posted. Good for DR members for staying on top of things.

[Pogrom]

Originally Posted by ices ↗

Meanwhile in the real world people need to eat, drink and provide for their families.

Oh and the companies who employ them wont really like a drop in numbers within their workforce.

Dont forget that we are in an recession and protests do not work when times are hard. It hurts the economy.

On the bright side, China will LOL all the way to its huge bank and scoff at us in the west for giving so much freedom to its people in the first place.

Companies love losing employees! They hire in new ones at a lower rate thus dropping their overall labor so they can make quota.The corporate slogan is "Everyone is expendible."