Wikipedia officially joins Reddit in shutting down January 18th to protest SOPA/PIPA

Off-Topic / Lounge
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Wikipedia officially joins Reddit in shutting down January 18th to protest SOPA/PIPA

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

https://twitter.com/#!/jimmy_wales/status/158960549105909761

SOPA may have been shelved but PIPA is still on the table and they won’t stop…

reddit isn’t really a big deal but wikipedia shutting down for an entire day is going to really shake some things up. I can’t wait to see how students react when they have to do an assignment.

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google is joining in, not a full blackout but will change their homepage

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If Google would shut down for a day that would get some attention. I never see the Google homepage.

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yeah, they should literally go black and have the links everywhere. Shutting down completely would be a little much for them.

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english www.wikipedia.org is down/blacke

google blacked out their logo with links to info

this is going to be very interesting to see how this works.

No reddit tomorrow either, I wonder what I’ll do at work.

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im guessing an excessive post count on these forums from ya :stuck_out_tongue:

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with no reddit to distract me I’ll probably hit 2k, and then I’ll get depressed.

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477×403 36.3 KB

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Just heard the local news do a story on it. It was a package piece done by a larger national network and it was very lopsided for the bill. Made me sad.

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im having reddit withdrawals

I’m even reading ableton forums at work since I have nothing better to do and I never go on there

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Yeah the guy in charge of Wiki in UK was just on BBC news explaining why its down to all the UK people who, have to say, in general have no idea whats going on.

Yes people like us know, but the average guy in the street in UK is probably hearing about all this SOPA/PIPA stuff for the first time today, just because they cant go on Wiki and find out something stupid like where Marmite is made.

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The media is spinning the hell out of the protests saying they are unlawful and disgusting abuses of power. The abuse of power is the fact corporations and big media are in the pockets of congress and the president.

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yep.

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lol oh the irony

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Fixed?

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slowest workday ever

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PIPA loses a cosponsor from FL while SOPA loses two cosponsors

“Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down.”

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Woke up at 4am today as I had an exam this morning and to find out wikipedia was down (and that I would actually have to put effort in to finding out stuff) was a bit of surprise.
Especially since I spent the four hours preceeding my exam researching pipa and sopa instead of preparing for my exam.

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fyi, wikipedia is still accessible:

[quote]But “black” is something of a relative term in this case. You can still get to Wiki’s English site today, as it explains here:

[quote]"Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?

“Yes. During the blackout, Wikipedia is accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page. Our purpose here isn’t to make it completely impossible for people to read Wikipedia, and it’s okay for you to circumvent the blackout. We just want to make sure you see our message.”
[/quote][/quote]