Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wikipedia founder threatens to 'turn off' site as protest against U.S. anti-piracy bill

We read:
"Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has threatened a 'strike' where the entire English-language site would be turned off as a protest against an anti-piracy bill currently under discussion in the U.S. The site is used by an estimated 365 million readers worldwide, and is ranked sixth overall on earth.

Writing on his private Wikipedia blog, Wales said, 'A global strike of at least the English Wikipedia would put the maximum pressure on the US government. 'At the same time, it's of course a very very big deal to do something like this, it is unprecedented for English Wikipedia.'

The threatened 'strike' - which would black out Wikipedia in English and possibly other languages - is in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is currently before the House Judiciary Committee.

Opponents of the bill - designed to protect copyright online - allege that it takes a 'guilty until proven innocent approach'. Sites such as Wikipedia, where content can be published by any user, are alleged to be at risk.

The activist group Electronic Frontier Foundation said, 'At a minimum, this means that any service that hosts user generated content is going to be under enormous pressure to actively monitor and filter that content.' 'That’s a huge burden, and worse for services that are just getting started – the YouTubes of tomorrow that are generating jobs today.'

At present, Mr Wales's proposed 'strike' has been put up for discussion on the site. There are hundreds of comments from site insiders, most of which 'Firmly Support' the action.

Source

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

In reality, this bill would give the govt. what it really wants, control of the internet, and therfor, speech it doesn't like. The next logical step would be, of course, to tax it.

How could they get away with this? It's easy when you rule a nation of sheep.

Anonymous said...

I support wikipedia. More importantly I'll work hard to unseat any pol that votes for it.

Anonymous said...

It's good to see that the owners of Wikipedia are willing to completely screw its loyal users because they don't agree with a government that its loyal users can no longer control. They are now a part of the 1%.

Stan B said...

Anon 1:11 AM - you know, maybe if more people WROTE LETTERS and VOTED, and fewer people just whined and moaned about how "uncontrollable" their representatives are, the government would be more "controllable."

Bird of Paradise said...

What ever became of RADIO FREE EUROPE?

Anonymous said...

When it comes to wikipedia, I am reminded of a very old song with a line that went, "I got along without you before I met you, I'm gonna get along without you now."

AIB/44