A number of sites across the web have either gone dark, blacked out or have definitive messages emblazoned across their home pages today, January 18, 2012, as the protest against the controversial proposed US legislation – SOPA (Stop On-line Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) escalates.
Wikipedia seems to be one of the most vocal. They have totally blacked out access to their English site for 24 hours asking people to “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge.” Interestingly enough the entries for SOPA & PIPA are readily available.
REDDIT’s home page says, “SOPA and PIPA damage the Internet. Today we fight back.” Their site will be down for 12 hours to raise awareness about the 2 proposed bills in congress. They offer their reader its take, encouraging people to take action.
A visit to WordPress.com homepage and you’ll see the site is not totally down. It has masked out sections of text and images and when you click on them you are welcomed with a message, “Today we are striking against censorship.” It comes with an encouragement to joint the strike with a call to action to write congress now.
Google.com’s main page has a subtle message that says: “Tell Congress, Please don’t censor the web,” with a hyperlink that allows you to sign a petition. Nothing shows up at Google.ca.
Flickr has an entry message on their blog today encouraging members to help raise awareness of the two bills. According to the post, Flickr is allowing members to “Darken” their photos or photos of others to “draw attention to the issue.” Initially, they imposed a 10 photo limit, but as of this morning, they removed that restriction.
There are many other major players as well as smaller sites that are participating, each deciding how in their own way.
Soapstrike.com has been compiling a list of sites that are participating in the one-day event. However, because of the sheer volume of submissions they are receiving, they’ve had to break the list into two parts. The first list is those that have had their participation confirmed, the other is simply an unfiltered list whose activity has yet to be verified.
And it’s one pretty big list!
The site also offers code to allow you to add the message to your own site.
Not Everyone is In
In a story reported earlier today in Canoe Technology, despite a call for action, not all the major players are participating.
Are any of your favourites sites down today? Let us know and let us know what you think about the proposed legislation.
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Greg Gazin is the Real Canadian Gadget Guy.
Follow me on Twitter @gadgetgreg.
Tags: PIPA, SOPA, strike, US legislation, Wikipedia
I was suprised sites like Twitter and Facebook didn’t jump on board. Social media is where it’s at for spreading the message.
And really can both sites say that they got to where they are today without some of the technologies that SOPA and PIPA are trying to regulate ?
k… did Google spell “censor” wrong or did you un-click spell check?
Spell check was on. Sometimes things do slip throughout the cracks. Thanks for catching it.