Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, announced through his Twitter account that the encyclopedia will be off on Wednesday, January 17th, 2012 for 24 hours to protest the SOPA law. After a lengthy discussion , the community decided that the measure will only run on the English edition, though it could affect 25 million visitors worldwide.
During the blackout, they will instruct visitors to lobby the U.S. Congress through email and phone to discard the bill. Wales’s announcement adds to other entities and companies such as Reddit, WordPress and Mozilla who have expressed their dissatisfaction with the SOPA law and also initiate action on Wednesday.
Although the government took away support for the controversial law in Wikipedia are not convinced. “Rumors of the death of SOPA may be premature. We have no indications that SOPA is completely off the table. PIPA is still alive and kicking. We need to send a strong message to Washington … In going full steam! “Wales said on Twitter.
As per Wikipedia official announcement :
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 . 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.
While Congress discussed the feasibility or the freezing of the SOPA law and PIPA, see how they develops this blackout, and the consequences of being out Wikipedia for a day. But without doubt, the first affected will be those students and researchers that the task ahead, as recommended by Wales on his twitter.
