Wikipedia, Google and other sites launch SOPA protest initiatives
Monday Wikipedia announced it would participate in a January 18 blackout to protest the SOPA piracy bill, joining other massive sites major sites like Reddit and Boing Boing.
Wikipedia’s decision has brought on detractors, most notably Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. After his initial negative comments he softened his stance, indicating Twitter won’t be blacking out its servce, indicating instead that Twitter has something else planned to protest SOPA and its sister bill PIPA.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales explained the reasoning behind the decision to blackout the site to the Telegraph:
“The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the internet, can affect everyone. As for me, what I am hoping is that people outside the US who have friends or family who are voters in the US, will ask them to make a call to their senator or representative, and I hope we send a broad global message that the internet as a whole will not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement.”
Visit Wikipedia today and you’ll see the following image:
Other sites are protesting in a different manner. Google for instance is using their popular homepage doodle to protest SOPA:
So if you’ve tried to access Wikipedia or another site featuring a variant of the two profiled above, it’s because of SOPA.
Learn more about it here, voice your opposition to the legislation here, and let us know what you think of site blackouts and SOPA/PIPA in the comments below!
Author : Jeff Cormier – http://about.me/jffcrmr
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