Year: 2012 Week: 4 Number: 132

The EN Wikipedia goes offline for 24 hours

• The community of the English language Wikipedia has decided to "blackout" the English Wikipedia for 24 hours. A sort of strike thus. The blackout goes in to effect from 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18. The blackout is a protest against the proposed law of the United States of America "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA).

The protest is there because the proposed law could harm the operation of community driven website like Wikipedia.
The decision of the Community of the English language Wikipedia is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. This in the first time the English Wikipedia - the oldest and most popular of all Wikipedias - does something like this. The Italian language Wikipedia did this a couple of months ago.
Other language Wikipedias have indicated to show support by displaying a banner but not also go "dark". Also non-Wikimedia websites will take part but not all by going dark. Google will put a link on there homepage about it.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative

  http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-16/Special_report

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-16/News_and_notes

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/58755

  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

  http://www.sopastrike.com/ -- websites that join the strike

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