Wikipedia blackout

[aneil4lom]

I was just reading about a planned wikipedia shutdown earlier today and lo and behold it's happening in almost 1 day now....
check it out

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/...-SOPA_blackout

[Slowdive]

I received this email a few days ago....
On Jan. 18th there is going to be an all-out strike on the internet. Websites across the internet are going dark in protest of the internet censorship bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA.
Some of the biggest sites in the world are participating: Reddit, Mozilla. And some others may join (e.g. a leading micro-blogging platform and a popular collaboratively-written encyclopedia), but they need a nudge. If we can get them to join this will be EPIC.

So clearly its more than doing the rounds, I have not really looked into the issue of SOPA enough to care. Selfishly Africa is so far behind we do not even have SPAM laws yet, I could always move my hosting local in event of any weirdness and ultimately the world will still use the net come what may. However I will be partaking for one reason, I think it is good to show corporations and governments that the internet can be mobilized that the end user is a force to be considered. So maybe out of some sense of rebellion over protest I will be partaking....damn the man and all that nonsense

[KenW3]

If you have any research to do on Wikipedia, now's the time. In less than 11 hours, the English Wikipedia will be blacked out globally to protest SOPA and PIPA. Their sister site, Wikimedia, has been blacked out since yesterday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[aneil4lom]

Is anyone here blacking out there website?

I did it for one of mines. Once the user clicks, then the content comes up like normal.

If anyone's interested; theres code to do it right here http://sopablackout.org/

[TheodoreK]

About the wikipedia block: Anyone can circumvent it with minimal web skills (minimal as in pressing 1 button)
Am I a pirate for reading wikipedia today? :P

[KenW3]

Here in the states, I cannot access content to the English Wikipedia. I can get to a page with navigation, but selection of any of the links returns the notice page.

I can reach some information with direct links to content, but using the search function from there still blacks out the results with the "Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge" black page. A search in G that returns a link to them turns black.

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

Contact your representatives.
Your ZIP code:

The page includes a place to enter our zip code. Doing so returns the names and contact information for our Congress-people and Senators for our area.

A copy of this page can be seen in The New York Times Web Wide Protest article.

[JJMcClure]

Good for them, SOPA is just another tool of censorship and a further step towards preventing the internet uniting us and instead being censored, and neutered and essentially useless. Just ask the Chinese. We met quite a few Chinese last week at the exhibition and none of them had seen my wife's website because it's blocked in China. All it has on it is textile designs...

[KenW3]

In addition to Wikipedia and Google taking part in this, other large sites protesting include CraigsList, WordPress.com, Reddit, EFF.org and Mozilla.

The Obama Administration had already responded to petitions, directly on the White House website, with their position on SOPA and Online Piracy prior to this blackout.
We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy

It appears that Hollywood companies are not very happy about that stance, and some have decided (today) to stop political donations.
Hollywood Moguls Stopping Donations

[crabfoot]

I have to comment that the Wiki blackout is not quite effective if you have a slow connection.

I went to get some info just after midnight. The page loaded, then the blackout screen appeared.
So I tried again, and hit the stop button as soon as I could see the page - then I could view my info.

[ScottJ]

The Wiki blackout was ace if you have education sites like I do, yesterday was my best ever adsense day showing me what I'm missing out on traffic wise