Wikipedia is set to go offline for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Act of 2011) bills currently in congress.
It is said that the English pages of Wikipedia gain around 25m unique hits per day!.
With more than 20 million articles on Wikipedia across almost 300 languages. The impact of such a huge website closing down will surely get the attention these bills deserve and have them trashed.
Jimmy Wales @jimmy_wales TWITTER update
Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa
Wikipedia is not the only website to protest these bills, The website Reddit
Here are the companies on board for a possible blackout:
- Wikipedia
- PayPal
- Zynga (creators of Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc.)
- eBay
- IAC, which owns these websites:
- Dictionary.com
- Ask.com
- Dictionary.com
- Match.com
- CollegeHumor
- Dorkly
- Dictionary.com
- Vimeo
If even a few of these huge websites shuts down for 24 hours it will help bring greater support against the SOPA bill.
