Wikipedia may shut down on Wednesday
Wikipedia may shut down on Wednesday
Wikipedia may black out its website Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced on Twitter Monday that the popular community-based online encyclopedia will shut down its English versions for 24 hours in protest. Users of the site have discussed for more than a month whether it should react to the legislation and in the past few days, tried to decide how.
The foundation behind the site, Wikimedia, says it is still collecting input from users and expects to make its final decision later Monday evening on the details of the protest based on that feedback. However, a large-scale blackout is expected at this time.
"We are looking at a powerful protest," said Jay Walsh, spokesman for the foundation.
The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act pending in Congress are designed to crack down on sales of pirated U.S. products overseas.
Supporters say the legislation is needed to protect intellectual property and jobs. Critics say the legislation could hurt the technology industry and infringe on free-speech rights.
Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others have questioned the legislation and said it poses a serious risk to the industry. Several online communities such as Reddit, Boing Boing and others have announced plans to go dark in protest.
Wikipedia is considering several different forms of response, from a banner across the top of the page to a black out in certain areas, up to a worldwide shutdown, Walsh said. If Wikipedia opts to black out, it would be the largest and most well-known website to do so.
"It's not a muscle that is normally flexed," Walsh said.
The Obama administration has also raised concerns about the legislation and said over the weekend that it will work with Congress on legislation to help battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy, security and innovation in the Internet.
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- Posted on January 16, 2012
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Honestly this is one of the best idea for wikipedia to have, because most of the time half of the stuff that gets posted on the website is completely fake and untrue. But for wikipedia lovers out there you might want to find a better resourceful site or live without it.
This would be a good idea. I got in trouble at school because of Wikipedia. I printed out a site, and it turned out to be a lot more pages than i saw. it was 50 pages. That is why this is a good idea.
I completely disagree with the SOPA and PIP legislation because it is unfair to online companies that have based their success on "piracy". I am so glad that the government voted against the legislation because it would shut down very important websites like Wikipedia. Online "piracy" does not affect anyone in a negative, it just helps kids like me do my homework. In the grand scheme of things, the internet is always changing, and even though the government may try to stop things that happen online, they have no control over new websites that will uncontrollably spring up every single day. Nice try with the legislation, but close but no cigar.
it really wasn't that big of a deal. i mean its one website. wikipedia isn't the best source of facts anyways. look on a real webs tie that from the government or something.
Why would they shut down Wikipedia!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I get all of my information from there! The only part that I would change is that you can edit the pages. Also, I don't see how they could shut down a website on the Internet. It's the creator's website, and it belongs to no one else! They better not shut down Wikipedia, or their might be a big protest...
Wow. They sure can make a big deal about one site shutting down that you could edit anyway. I mean, why and how would and could the president get involved?
I get a minority of my information on wikipedia. But I still find it useful in many ways, meaning usually as a backup source, where if I don't find information some place I can always find it on wikipedia. But I still understand. I understand because all the information may not be true, and that is a big problem with not only me, but my teachers as well.
I really don't think that shutting down wikipedia for a day will help with anything. Especially with anti-piracy, since many people choose not to use Wikipedia for its unreliable sources. Anybody in the world could post whatever they wanted to on that website, so to some people, they wouldn't even know what happened. And by shutting down just the English version but leaving all the other languages..? Why bother. It's not like 24 hours of not being able to access ONE website will make a difference to anyone.
Wikipedia is not a very good search engine, or source. You can change all the information. Their could be a ten year old changing definitions, and we could be writing it down in our own school papers. My school doesn't even let us use Wikipedia. I understand that, but sometimes we all have that lack of energy and just want to go to Wikipedia, so we can get a quick answer.
People have the freedom to change the definitions in Wikipedia.So I think it's not 100% reliable source.But I definitely don't agree with Sopa.Or Pipa either because It will take away some our rights from the Bill of Rights.Like Freedom of Speech.But I'm well informed on Sopa plus this comment is in the future.