Wikipedia, Reddit To Shut Down Sites Wednesday To Protest Proposed Stop Online Piracy Act

www.democracynow.org - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world, will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit, to "go dark" on Wednesday in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are currently being debated in Congress. "What these bills propose are new powers for the government — and also for private actors — to create effectively blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites," says Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "What we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net." Chief technology officials in the Obama administration have expressed concern about any "legislation that ... undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." But the bill's main backers, Hollywood movie studios and music publishers, want to stop the theft of their creative content and the bills have widespread bipartisan support. A vote on SOPA is on hold in the House now, as the Senate is still scheduled vote on PIPA next Tuesday.

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• democracy now
• dn
• headlines
• news
• politics
• amy goodman
• electronic frontier foundation
• EFF. corynne mcsherry
• intellectual property
• sopa
• pipa
• blacklist
• internet freedom
• wikipedia
• reddit
• mozilla
• firefox
• censorship
• online piracy

[Spartan117FS]

China has tens of thousands of people working on internet sensoring, and they still fail.

[KrinkleMail]

0:06 Just FYI. Wikipedia has not blacked out articles about the protest itself, those remain available.

[MagicEyelash]

reddit shutting down

no loss

[KEVLANEW80]

FREE SPEECH.

[R3VBigBlue]

FaceBook is made for Socializing with other peoples this is not a pirated website

[Hellfire918]

@basboosa SOPA & PIPA have not been passed. They'll have to give proof that Facebook or Youtube is a Pirate site before they shut them down.

[basboosa]

@MrGreenaloe agreed!! but isnt that what our wonderful government has been trying to do over the past years! fighting and involving ourselves in wars and issues that have nothing to do with us just to prove that we are the superior beings ruling the world, and trying to dictate how the worlds economy is run (and failing miserably at it)

now we want to dictate how pple around the globe can and should use their internet !!

[basboosa]

snap they have just shut down megaupload!!! i loved that site!! crap now im scared that they will be shutting down youtube twitter and facebook next!

[avatarfan70]

@MrGreenaloe I agree with you

[FnKGaming]

@newgx67 No, were not. Most americans hate this and started anti-SOPA stuff.

[MrGreenaloe]

the problem with all of this besides the whole piracy party (which is the main problem) is that our country, our government has no right to pass a law that permanently affects the rest of the world. that's like having our country trying to have a global dictatorship over the internet...