Anti-Piracy Law Protest Sees Wikipedia Go Dark

Wikipedia has blacked out its English-language site for 24 hours to seek support against proposed US anti-piracy legislation it says threatens the future of the internet.



The English version of the online encyclopaedia receives an average of more than 25 million daily visitors globally, according to comScore research data.

It is the highest profile name to join a growing campaign to black out pages so visitors only see information criticising the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

“When you are trying to do your research paper, when you are just trying to find some factual information and a lot of people rely on Wikipedia, it won’t be there,” Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of online news site Mashable, said.

“They’ve basically come to a message that says they’ve gone dark in protest.”

Smaller site Boing Boing has also blacked out its pages. The creators of Reddit.com have promised to do the same and the AOL-owned Huffington Post has a black entrance screen.

Search engine Google has not blacked out its pages but created a link for their US homepage redirecting users to information about why Sopa may not be a good thing.

Google has repeatedly said the bill goes too far and could hurt investment.

Along with other internet companies such as Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, it has run advertisements in major US newspapers urging Washington politicians to rethink their approach.

The Sopa legislation under consideration in the House of Representatives and Pipa in the Senate aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music and other goods.

It forces internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates US copyright laws.

Advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads, while search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.

The proposed law also gives big corporations the power to block any website whose content they disgree with, whether legitimate or not.