Tomorrow, as part of a nationwide day of action against censorship online, Wikipedia and several other large websites
will go dark:
On Jan. 18, the English version of Wikipedia will go down for 24-hours to protest the U.S. anti-piracy laws - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). FYI, that's midnight tonight. [...]
Wikipedia joins sites like MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and the ICanHasCheezBurger network. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr will not be joining the day of protest, however, all have expressed their stance against the bills.
This action comes on the heels of a tremendous amount of momentum for opponents of SOPA and PIPA. The DNS portions of the bills have been removed, SOPA has been effectively shelved, the White House came out against the bills as currently written, and opposition to PIPA is mounting ahead of a scheduled Jan. 24 vote.
While the most dramatic, the blackout will not be the only action against SOPA and PIPA taking place tomorrow. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of activists are expected to contact their senators and representatives in Congress. Local tech communities in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. are also holding impromptu rallies.
The passage of these two bills once seemed like a foregone conclusion. However, a transpartisan tech coalition has fomented a widespread online revolt that might result in not just the defeat of SOPA and PIPA, but also in the emergence of a powerful new constituency that will play an important role on all future public policy affecting the internet.
Please, contact your senators and tell them to oppose PIPA.
10:19 AM PT: Google will not be participating in the blackout, but will have an action link on its homepage.
10:57 AM PT: A complete list of websites participating in tomorrow's blackout can be found at sopastrike.com.
