An Urgent Message From Jimmy Wales

[Hasbinbad]

English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.
Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in a public statement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...and_conclusion):
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. "This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the United States, find your elected representative in Washington (https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States, contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the internet to remain open and free.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011). Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Media Contact:

For the Wikimedia Foundation Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh@wikimedia.org

[purist 3.0]

p99/r99 to go black jan 18-25 also

[Rikimeru]

to late, sopa already shot down

[Hasbinbad]

pipa not

[The Revanchist]

FUCK PIPA

[Hailto]

So hbb, what happened to that huge march that is supposed to occur on capitol hill, i was eagerly awaiting the luls to occur, is that still on?

[Arclyte]

good riddance

[Hasbinbad]

Originally Posted by Hailto [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So hbb, what happened to that huge march that is supposed to occur on capitol hill, i was eagerly awaiting the luls to occur, is that still on?

happened all day, 4k+ people in front of the capitol building all marched to the white house, and all around dc mall.. total media blackout. watch the streams for lulz.

[Massive Marc]

Does anyone know what Canadian representative I would contact regarding SOPA/PIPA ?

Will this work ?:

John Baird
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
Canada

Telephone : 613-995-1851

[Raavak]

Big name Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, pulled his name from co-sponsoring PIPA this morning.