[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

Tue Jan 17 03:22:24 UTC 2012

Thanks for this announcement Jay, and everyone involved in the planning of
this unprecedented action.

Quick clarification:
What time, precisely, will this be occurring?
The on-wiki summary states "...for 24 hours starting at 05:00 UTC on
January 18, 2012, or at another time as determined by the Wikimedia
Foundation." could you just confirm what time this will happen, thanks.

-Liam

On Tuesday, 17 January 2012, Jay Walsh <jwalsh at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Please also see the related blog post,
>
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/
>
> The release is posted here:
>
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark
>
> *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/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_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.
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-- 
Peace, love & metadata