Wiki Blackout

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 PROTECT IP 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 commercially 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 intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt 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.

Make your voice heard!

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

 

I approve. It's too bad a one day blackout won't have that much of an impact.

 

I just wanted to start a thread about it.
Those proposed rules are horrific to man kind and to the US as well.

The Internet freedom and fast networks caused a revolution we only start to understand. All the changes in the world we see, starting from the Arab world through the depression in Europe and the rise of the far east are only the beginning of this.
This is a new age and it will be remebered in history with the same importance as the Gutenberg print or the industrial revolution.

Those rules are trying to reverse this change, they try to kill human progress.
Imagine prohibiting print in gutenberg time and allowing only "hand written scriptures" because of "copyrights" in those days. Where would humanity be, had such a move been enforced. Now imagine where the human race will be in 300 years in the future with and without freedom of information....

 

Well said. The truth will set you free.

 

As if that's going to make a difference !

 

It won't do any real good.

The only thing that might make a difference is to black out the entire internet for a couple of months.

You see, when the corporations see those greenbacks they'll stop at nothing to get them, and they have too much interest in getting all that money from the internet.

Every single penny must be theirs.

Sad to say.

 

Since WIKI doesn't make a profit(I don't think), they should shut it down for a week to see if it truly makes a dent. If people don't care, make it a month. If people don't care after that, the website doesn't have quite thew influence they think. Still can't use it as an official research tool anyhow.

SOPA & PIPA are horrible, but I wouldn't miss WIKIPEDIA if it shut down tomorrow for good. Might check it once a month. Nothing on there you can't get elsewhere.

If GOOGLE shut off, now that would actually effect people. But then they would hurt their profits...good luck with that happening=)

 

I do hope that it makes some difference, but I am skeptical as well.

I agree with free man, this is the age of internet, of knowledge and empowerment. I have always been a supporter of Wikimedia, and any other site that promotes free information that is easily accessible and available to anyone in the world. The idea of an internet police force is scary indeed.

Besides, how many sites are really out there that don't have any copyrighted material whatsoever?

 

This will hurt people that depend on Wikipedia for their research, especially students who have reports to turn in. What a stupid idea.

 

Hopefully people will get a clue and start to fight back.

It's not just wikipedia that's going to be shutting down, several other sites like craigslist are also going to shut down.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/popular-websites-dark-over-sopa-controversy-174211626.html

Wikipedia, cragslist, and minecraft are also going down. These are some major sites that have millions of users a day.

This is going to get some pretty big attention from people.

 

That's the point. People will be inconvenienced by this, which will raise awareness of the issue being promoted.

 

Anyone who depends on wikipedia for their research deserves to get a fail.

However, if they've never heard of a library and really must use wiki,
all they have to do is use the cached version of the page they are looking for. Simple.

Start a search and then hover over the grey box with double right arrows next to the search results. The page will appear on the right-hand side of the screen. Click on “Cached” and Google will take you to the page.

 

What needs to be shut down are the sites and internet connection of those corporations that push those laws.
If they want to deprive the people of their right to knowledge, the people need to deprive them of that right as well.
Shut down their sites and they will take their stupidity someplace else.

 

Wiipedia is substantially more useful and usable than conventional encyclopedias, because it is better indexed and the article quality is usually just as good. Note; encyclopedias in general are not good to cite, because they're just a secondary summation of information presented elsewhere. Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, Wikipedia usually provides citations that can get a researcher started on finding primary sources.

 

Exactly. I had no idea what SOPA or PIPA was a few days ago until i heard about this "shutdown".

It seems to have an effect already because Obama's saying no to SOPA and the Senate version is in danger of failing.

 

so the point of a self imposed black out is....what? awareness???

 

It is the lack of ability to fight back that plagues the western world.

 

I would like to point out that Craigslist isn't actually shut down. They have a black page urging users to contact their representatives but there is a link which takes you to your usual city listing page.

 

You know how they have one of those "X minutes to midnight" clocks for nuclear war? They need one for "X minutes to America becoming a police state."

We'd be at the 2 minute mark by now.

Anyway, yeah, I hope this blackout inspires enough concern that SOPA and PIPA get "indefinitely detained."

 

better start writing to your local congressman regarding SOPA. seriouslly these type of law increasely become chinese great firewall.

 

F Wiki. What a stupid idea. The people who run Wiki should be fired. How is quitting for a day gonna change this legislation? Just goes to show you what a bunch of liberal ignoramouses run these major corporations.

 

Apparently, Wiki is more concerned with protecting the rights of pirates and intellectual property theives than the rights of artists, writers and producers of copywrited materials.

 

Yes, it is more concerned to spread knowledge to the whole human race than protect 5 tycoons who has nothing to do with their money anyways.

 

Sopa and Pipa type laws are not about protecting artists for none of that money goes to the artists anyway. It goes right tot he lawyers. Artists make only pennies on the dollar, if that.

So to say it's about protecting the artists is a scam and a shame.

If the artists were smart they'd fire the lawyers that rip them off. If the artists were smart they'd change the way crap groups like the MPAA does things.

 

You have no clue how this will really affect website owners...stop being ignorant and really look into why this is a bad thing