Despite the fact that the festering port-o-potty of a piracy prevention bill — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — is effectively dead, Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing are all going forward with plans to go dark tomorrow. Despite winning the SOPA battle, the sites are reportedly going forward with the protests in an effort to bring attention to the larger, looming war over internet censorship in the name of stemming piracy.
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, says his site will go dark for the day on Wednesday, joining a budding movement to protest the two bills.
“This is going to be wow,” Wales said on Twitter. “I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!”
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Other sites, such as Reddit and Boing Boing, have already said they would go dark on Wednesday. And some of the biggest names online, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, have vocally opposed the proposed legislation, though they have not said they are joining the online blackout.
Former Senator Chris Dodd, now head of the MPAA, slammed the effort, saying, “It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services.” (I’d be willing to bet good money that Dodd, a withered old twat, has absolutely no clue what Reddit, Boing Boing or Wikipedia are.) Additionally, Google, while it won’t go dark, will feature a homepage graphic and a link to a post protesting the laws.
Meanwhile, get your research papers done tonight, all you kids in school out there. Otherwise, God forbid, you’ll HAVE TO GO TO THE LIBRARY TOMORROW!!! Oh the horror!
(Pic via Ben Parr)
