It's Official: Wikipedia To Go Dark On Wednesday

by Mike Masnick
Techdirt
Jan. 16, 2012

Last week, we noted that Jimmy Wales was in favor of a blacking out Wikipedia on Wednesday in protest of PIPA, joining with Reddit and lots of other sites, but that the community need to weigh in quickly. It appears they've now done so, as Wales is telling students to do their homework early, because the site is a goner for Wednesday:

In fact, it appears they're going even further than Reddit, who is going down for 12 hours. All English-language pages on Wikipedia will go dark for 24 hours -- starting at midnight DC time on Wednesday. For what it's worth, I've been told by multiple Congressional staffers that Wikipedia is a tool they all rely on pretty much every day -- so expect this to get some attention. The site will also be replaced with an action alert, asking people to call and write Congress -- and Jimmy says his goal is to "melt the phone lines." Considering how much usage Wikipedia gets, that's entirely possible.

This is a big move, and it's great to see Jimmy and the community willing to take a stand like this. Jimmy is also tweeting up a storm about why this is so important. He's also responding to false claims that the bills are "dead," by noting that SOPA (1) may rise again and (2) that PIPA is still alive and well.

Either way, come Wednesday, I'm curious if Congress is still going to be claiming that it's just a "small minority" of people who dislike these bills.












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