Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is one of the biggest sites on the web. This site is an incredibly useful source of information for nearly everybody, as it provides knowledge on almost every topic one could think of. On Wednesday, Jan. 18, Wikipedia shut down for the day. Joined by other sites such as Mozilla, Reddit, WordPress and Boing Boing, Wikipedia took part in this blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA, anti-piracy acts making their way through Congress.
SOPA, or Stop Online Piracy Act, was introduced Oct. 26, 2011 and would allow the US Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek legal action against sites containing copyright infringement. PIPA, or Protect Intellectual Property Act, is essentially the same as SOPA. These bills may have been proposed with good intentions, but they could result in the destruction of popular sites such as YouTube, Flickr, and, of course, Wikipedia.
To put the effects of SOPA and PIPA into perspective, let’s say these acts had already been enforced back when the internet first started. There would be no Facebook, MediaFire, YouTube, or Twitter because all of these sites are vulnerable for being targeted and accused of enabling piracy. Without these sites, the internet wouldn’t even be the internet.
These acts also allow for companies to create a hit list of sorts against websites they feel are violating their policies of copyrighting. After the companies contact the payment processors for the site, there will be a five-day period for action to be taken before the website is just taken down (wikipedia.com). Many view these acts as being, at their core, about censorship and believe they are an attack on our rights that should not be taken lightly.