Wikipedia to stage blackout in protest at SOPA

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I just read this on wiki

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Eng ... A_blackout

[Hermit]

Makes sense to me. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote:

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.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Makes a lot of sense and will undoubtedly raise the profile of the proposed legislation. Whether it will do any good is another matter. now, if facebook were to follow suit...

[Hermit]

now, if facebook were to follow suit...

...the duckface and gangsta-handgesture brigades will be seriously pissed off.

[JimC]

Makes sense to me. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote:

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.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable position.

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Nothing on the BBC site as yet.

[Hermit]

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

Articles have appeared in the UK's Daily Mail and the US's Washington Post already. I bet there'll be more shortly, but perhaps not in the Murdoch owned media. Murdoch is a firm supporter of the proposed laws.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

Articles have appeared in the UK's Daily Mail and the US's Washington Post already. I bet there'll be more shortly, but perhaps not in the Murdoch owned media. Murdoch is a firm supporter of the proposed laws.

Funny that. You would have thought that a man in charge of a vast media empire would be against censorship and... oh wait... this is the cunt that wants people to pay for everything they want to read online, isn't it?

[redunderthebed]

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

Articles have appeared in the UK's Daily Mail and the US's Washington Post already. I bet there'll be more shortly, but perhaps not in the Murdoch owned media. Murdoch is a firm supporter of the proposed laws.

Funny that. You would have thought that a man in charge of a vast media empire would be against censorship and... oh wait... this is the cunt that wants people to pay for everything they want to read online, isn't it?

Nah he just wants to make a buck out of everything he can netizens shouldn't feel picked on or singled out.

[Atheist-Lite]

How can you be sure it is true when there is only a Wiki to verify it?

[Hermit]

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

Articles have appeared in the UK's Daily Mail and the US's Washington Post already. I bet there'll be more shortly, but perhaps not in the Murdoch owned media. Murdoch is a firm supporter of the proposed laws.

Funny that. You would have thought that a man in charge of a vast media empire would be against censorship and... oh wait... this is the cunt that wants people to pay for everything they want to read online, isn't it?

Ayup. Murdoch's media empire is not about the dissemination of information to the public. It is about making profit from the public, mainly via its consumption of the media's entertainment products. The so-called Free-To-Air commercial television and radio broadcasters go one level further. Their money comes from getting the public to view, and act on, advertising. The stuff between commercials is just bait.

[JimC]

It made it to the Melbourne Age: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/tec ... 1q3wu.html

Anti-piracy protest triggers Wikipedia shutdown
Georgia Wilkins
January 17, 2012 - 4:18PM
Read later
Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours tomorrow to protest against US piracy laws, which are backed by the music and film industries but rigorously opposed by internet companies.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act will force internet service providers to block non-US websites that offer pirated content if served with a court order.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced the planned global block-out of the site's English pages on Twitter this morning, after first raising the idea on Monday.

"This is going to be wow. I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!" he tweeted.

Mr Wales said the block-out would run from midnight US Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday to midnight the next day (4pm – 4pm AEST).

"Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!" he tweeted.

An estimate by digital analysts comScore puts the English site's daily visitors at an average of 25 million globally. But Mr Wales said the site's traffic could blow out as a result of the black-out's publicity.

"With all the buzz, it might be 30-40 million."



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/tec ... z1jh6iRDOy

[PsychoSerenity]

Nice.

[MiM]

I wonder if the news of the blackout will make the mainstream media?

In Finland major newspapers and TV channels have it at least on their websites. I also found a short piece about it already in this mornings printed version of our leading newspaper.

I would have been extremely surprised, if they had ignored it.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

How does one prevent US based folk from accessing a Website?