Wikipedia Still Set For Full Blackout Wednesday 291
symbolset writes "Jimmy Wales confirms that the entire English language Wikipedia will be on blackout January 18th from midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time. The site's 25 million daily users will redirected to an education page with a call to action. Votes are still being taken on the exact implementation."
Despite a small victory against SOPA in the House, Wikipedia still feels the blackout is necessary due to the looming Senate vote on PROTECT IP, and as a deterrent to future attempts to revive a similar law under a new name.
Chicken! (Score:5, Insightful)
Shut it down for a week and you'll be able to almost hear the roar of a billion college students having their term papers failed!
Re:Chicken! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Chicken! (Score:4, Interesting)
Co-founder of Nupedia you should add. Wikipedia was an afterthought for people who were too impatient to get an article through the Byzantine process of getting a Nupedia article created. The funny thing is that the free-for-all process of article creation at Wikipedia ended up becoming by far and away better quality than the structured academic process that Nupedia set up.
On the positive side, Jimbo Wales did add some of the initial content to Wikipedia oh so many years ago, not that he should necessarily be proud of those contribution. This "new article" [wikipedia.org] certainly seems a bit odd for an example of a quality article. There were other edits done earlier, but the software on Wikipedia had some corruption of the edit history and some of those edits were lost even though the content has been preserved.
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Shut it down for a week and you'll be able to almost hear the roar of a billion college students having their term papers failed!
A billion college students? Since when did 1/7 people go to college around the world?
Re:Chicken! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chicken! (Score:5, Informative)
Even blocking domains is enough to cause massive damage: most sites outside USA still use .org, .com and .net, especially in English speaking countries.
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most sites outside USA still use .org, .com and .net
Well now here's their incentive to change,/i>,
But in today's global world, what would you use instead? National domains are any good only for sites that are restricted to a single country, or at least have close ties to one in some way. Of course, technically you can run a global site from Lybia or Montenegro, but that's contrary to the point of national TLDs.
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Re:Chicken! (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't think SOPA/PIPA will affect you if you live outside the USA? This kind of policy has a tendency to spread to other countries with like-minded politicians.
In fact, SOPA/PIPA were specifically designed to target "rogue foreign sites".
Re:Chicken! (Score:4, Insightful)
make it impossible for the MSM to ignore blackout (Score:5, Insightful)
"Best yet, it would make it nearly impossible for the MSM to ignore the blackout/SOPA/PIPA. Then watch as they tiptoe around the elephant in the living room: why they haven't been covering SOPA/PIPA up until this point."
Hey everyone, between the post above and the slightly typo'ed article below, they just told us how to really beat these bills.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php [washingtonmonthly.com]
Key quote:
"The legislation ran into an even more significant problem yesterday when the White House announced its opposition to the bills. ... ...
Until now, the Obama administration had not taken a position on the issue.
Though the administration did not issue a formal veto threat, the White Houseâ(TM)s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form."
So (sorta) forget your fifth-grade teacher's advice to write to congress. (Mods, that's rhetoric, not literal.) Though the exact timing is a little fuzzy, here's how it really worked:
1. Mainstream Media ignores the issue, because the bill is in its favor.
2. Grassroots movement to excite the Big Players.
3. Big Players excite the general public.
4. Listen to what the President is *not saying*.
5. Tell the *President* (via staff etc) that *he or his party* will not get re-elected if he signs the bill!
6. President issues veto threat. MainStream Media *has to report on the President* (usually!)
7. Bill dies because it's a dare that it would require an Over-ride.
Re:Chicken! (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like how people outside the US rely on the internet as a whole?
We live in an international society, when the US plans to do something that affects the world at large, the world at large should be made aware of it and given the choice to pressure the US into sanity. If you don't live in the US and get pissed off at the blackout, feel free to mention it to your government representative so that they can go to their bosses and tell them to tell their US counterparts to stop being idiots.
Hopefully it won't end up a bit chinese-whispery and go from "Stop SOPA and PIPA from destroying the internet" to "Some girl on the internet called Pippa wants to ban Soap".
Re:Chicken! (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of all that is coffee, there are people outside the US that use wikipedia. Some of us rely on it for work/school.
Apparently you haven't heard about the person in the UK who was just ordered to be extradited to the United States for "copyright infringement" despite the fact that neither he nor his website were located in the U.S.
If Wikipedia, Facebook, Google, etc. were really serious about protesting these bad laws they would completely shut down their systems for at least a week in order to really demonstrate what the effects would be.
Re:Chicken! (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed.
The US's reach grows ever longer, and the idiocy ever more severe. Nobody can place exactly when we became the Corporate States of America; historians 50 years from now may point to Citizens United, or they may point to the various copyright extension bills, especially the repetitive Mickey Mouse Protection Acts bought by Disney over and over again.
Re: Citizens United (Score:5, Informative)
Well, actually
Citizens United became a front group for giant corporations, both within and without the United States when our Supreme Court decided, as Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people, too." And thus, they have a right to free speech. And that right ought not to be abridged, especially in politics (except we do abridge individuals right of freedom of speech by calling it a "verbal act.").
This is wholesale misuse of the 14th Amendment, which was actually written to give persons of African and non-European ancestry full citizenship in the US. It has been interpreted by people who ought to have their heads examined as "Corporations are people, too and, because there are more people, they are deserving of extra protection.
Of course, in their infinite wisdom, our Supreme Court did not consider the fact that many big Corporations are multinational now and, since they are permitted to use any amount of their money for "free speech," much of that money can come from overseas.
Which suggests, for example, that Ron Paul's SuperPAC is actually run by Iran, who would really like for the United States to be ultra-isolationist. I'm not in possession of any certain knowledge that it is, but since there are no laws requiring any reporting and since Ron Paul did vote to prevent any reporting, this makes him suspect.
So Citizens United might have initially been a well-intentioned group, but it has morphed into the single worse Supreme Court Decision in this country since the Dred Scott Case.
A Personal Appeal From Jimmy Wales (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Re:A Personal Appeal From Jimmy Wales (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, there's so many ways to have fun [wordpress.com] with those things.
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You missed the joke. Remember the fundraising banner?
I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
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I have no idea what you mean from your description, but Wikipedia does run their own DNS. They use PowerDNS for their global DNS load balancing.
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On Wednesday, yes, but today the bandwidth will be gigantic as users rush to download the whole thing [wikipedia.org].
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They wont be deterred. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:4, Insightful)
yes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since they are bought and sold, call them what they truly are: Political Property.
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, but see, the "90%" have this magical thing called the "vote." You may have heard of it. As much as politicians love money, they love votes far far more.
Now, if only people actually realized this.
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This seems to be a popular opinion on /., that SOPA will be split into riders that will be passed separately. I doubt this will happen.
The media incumbents (aka MAFIAA) wanted their very own nuclear option with regard to the web. Congress have no technological understanding whatsoever. Despite warnings from technology experts, the attitude of most supporting Congressional representatives was “We’re going to pass this anyway” which attitude reveals a serious failure to understand the potent
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm guessing that was a joke, but there are people who seriously believe that to be a valid argument.
If no one is buying content from the shady providers it doesn't matter how many laws they pass they will die by attrition. The only possible exception is if they get a law passed that just invokes a tax against every citizen regardless of what they buy/do. In that event (the government being completely, undeniably corrupt that is) there are things called revolutions that can fix the problem.
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Not sure if they will try the media tax again like they did in Canada. The media tax resulted in more people excepting that piracy is alright as they have payed for it every time they purchase blank media.
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and what is wrong with "class warfare" ? (Score:2, Troll)
the same kind of thing was being done with british monarchy back in 1774. why did you revolt against them. why didnt you say 'its class warfare ! we should stay united !' ?
the monarch and its immediate lower hierarchy was just enforcing their rightful share out of your economy through taxes.
the top 5%
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The East India Tea company didn't say "Raise taxes on tea". It was big government (King George), who wanted to pay for British programs on the backs of the American colonies... something the Americans had no say in due to the turn around time in sending representatives.
The rich evil corporations are at the mercy of the public. They must convince you to give them your money, unlike the Government that can take it by gunpoint. Don't believe me? Ask Verizon how that
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The East India Tea company didn't say "Raise taxes on tea". It was big government (King George), who wanted to pay for British programs on the backs of the American colonies... something the Americans had no say in due to the turn around time in sending representatives.
i am sure that i am not getting my history at the place you are getting. for its full of shit.
'king george' is big government. east india company is not. who is east india company ? and who is that big government ? BRITISH ARISTOCRACY. and their ultimate figurehead AND representative, is king george.
and why did king george raise taxes ?
to recover debts which were incurred while warring against france for the benefit of those said companies, including east india company. EXACTLY what is happening w
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It's not magic, it's people with too much power converting that power into wealth. You have cause and effect all mixed up
no. you have it mixed up. where there were no governments, wealth first created power, THEN governments. this is what was behind the onset of feudalism after breakdown of roman empire. this is too long a subject. however, simply, those who held wealth, evolved into feudal lords, THEN they created hierarchical power relations in between each other, leading to kingdoms.
If some people want to be serfs in your view because of conveniences such as you mention, then I don't mind. It'll mean cheaper stuff
and therein lies the stupidity. concentrating power never ever results in 'cheaper stuff' or 'more convenience' it is always the opposite. the
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What we need to do is take back our republic from the 1%.
It's the highly-paid top marketing minds, political functionaries, spin doctors and government job lifers who conceived of the so-called "1%/99%" dichotomy and wrote all the slogans and seeded the memes that the deluded unwashed of the "Occupy" movement have been made to believe are their own. It's designed to allow Obama -- the candidate deepest in the pocket of the Content Industry -- to play an effective class warfare card in the pending election and defeat the Gordon-Gecko-esque Romney.
Stop being a tool.
Do you have any evidence of that at all? Maybe AdBusters dreamed the idea up, but they are hardly highly paid top marketing types. They can barely market themselves. Where I live, the occupy group seems local. It was inspired by occupy Wall Street etc. but everything I have seen about the local activities makes me think the the occupy movement gave local folks a focus for a lot of existing concerns. Even if the spin doctors might have invented the memes, they lost control of them.
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I might be accused at being a radical for posting this but... Surely the Proper Solution (TM) would be to get lawmakers that cannot be bought but which make laws according to common sense and conscience?
Just a thought...
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be the proper solution, however: It's not possible. The current problem isn't really that lawmakers are being bought, it's that they have no way to do their jobs without being bought. It takes money to get known enough to win elections, and votes themselves are an almost uselessly imprecise tool to judge preferences, leading to lawmakers needing to listen to some group to understand what their voters want. In the absence of any better system, that tends to be the loudest group with money on an issue. Which is almost invariably a corporation lobbying for it's own benefit. (Or a PAC lobbying for a sub-group of the populations' benefit, typically a sub-group that has money to fund the PAC.)
The system is operating as designed: Broken.
Re:They wont be deterred. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes they can. It's called "public funding", and right now it's so shitty because they allow a superior private alternative.
You know, they talk about "campaign finance reform" being hard to figure out. It really isn't. Here's how I would do it, and I think it's a pretty solid plan.
First, a vote similar to primaries would take place before the election. Said vote would include all persons willing to run for the office who can meet a minimum requirement of X signatures of voters in the related district. This keeps out the millions of loons who might want to run for president but can't actually get people to commit to supporting them.
After this first stage is complete, these people are added to a ballot. This ballot asks that voters choose who they would (at the time) vote for the office in a non-committal way. Basically, "out of these candidates, which one is currently your favorite?".
After this is done, we'll have rough popularity numbers. This person might get 20% of the vote, this person 10%, etc. Any "abstains" on the ballot would be added to a pool and divided evenly among all the candidates to raise everyone's percentage equally.
Next, the government has mandated allocated public advertising space on the television, radio, and web. (We have no problem seizing assets when it suits us, and it may as well be in a way that's actually helpful to our country.)
The candidates get advertising space based on their percentages. If they can make something like at least 3%, then they get a guaranteed "block" of space (say 60 seconds out of one hour's total of commercial airtime). The candidates get advertising ability proportional to their ability to get votes.
All other advertising directly relating to candidates is otherwise illegal. No private money. No "PACs". Issues? Sure. People? No. You can make a big campaign about "voting Republican", but should a candidate be stupid enough to appear in said advertisement then their candidacy is immediately forfeit.
So how would the candidates get voters to pick them in the finance vote if advertising is illegal? I don't know, how about the old fashioned way? Town hall meetings. Debates. Door-to-door campaigning. Talking directly with voters.
Is my system perfect? No. Is it better than what we have now? I think so. Can someone come up with something even better than this? Probably.
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The answer to corruption is not to pay more than the other guys. The answer is to run out the corrupt bastards in such a way that the next bunch gets the message. Shooting them generally works fairly well for a generation or two, then you have to repeat it to refresh everyone's memory.
The largest virtual protest ever? (Score:2)
Murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose now Murdoch will accuse Wikipedia of being a "piracy leader" along with Google. After all, Wikipedia just serves up other people's content and takes money (what they call "donations") for it.
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Of course that's what the hypocrite -- whose own staff hacked people's phones, presumably with his blessing, would say.
Why don't we ask Jack the Ripper about prostitutes? John Wayne Gacy about young men? Timmy McVeigh about the Federal government?
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Seriously, "Murdoch supports SOPA" should be on these strike sites if public support is needed.
Political reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Better print it out (Score:5, Funny)
I figure I'll be done by Tuesday night.
If anyone needs something looked up on Wednesday, give me a call.
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Or the offline-wikipedia project [sourceforge.net] ? ? ?
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The Research Works Act (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't mind them helping with awareness of the RWA, where publishers are basically trying to make public access policies illegal. Read more here [guardian.co.uk].
How to do the same on your site (Score:5, Informative)
Probably been posted already on a prior thread, but if you want to support the blackout on your website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc. there is useful info here [sopastrike.com].
If they pass the law (Score:3)
My production will go up (Score:5, Informative)
With all the sites going dark tomorrow, my work production will see a marked rise.
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Didn't Google mention they would do the same ?
Not sure if they would, but if they did I know some parts of my work probably won't become easier. Bing might help fill that gap slightly.
What would happen if they disabled gmail too ? That would be 'interresting' to watch.
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Didn't Google mention they would do the same ?
No.
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I plan on taking that extra time spent getting lost on wikipedia links I'd normally lose in my day and write letters to my Senators and Representative, then call up all their offices. Unfortunately both my Senators are co-sponsors of PIPA, so I don't expect much movement there.
Thanks a buttload, Chet... (Score:2)
I'm all for calling attention to stupid legislation, but causing major inconvenience to me just angers me against you. I think a full blackout against reading the site is just BS. Just make everyone do a couple of extra clicks to get to the content and call it good. I suppose I'll brush up on my French in case I need to look something up that day.
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Sorry, but you don't get how protests are supposed to work. You are like those that tell protesters to go protest among themselves in a stadium out of sight of everyone else. Protesting is designed to get your attention. To get peoples attention who are unaware. So you would be angry with Rosa Parks who did not sit in the back of the buss causing an uproar and inconveniencing you?
Re:Thanks a buttload, Chet... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, a few clicks through of inconvenience won't convince users just how bad the situation is.
They need to be given a "taste" of post-SOPA life to truly understand it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ah yes, what's wrong with the world today: something that is obviously no good causing you grief? Well don't do anything that would cause discomfort! It's only cool to protest if it doesn't inconvenience anyone, if that's ok with you? No? Oh well, then we'll just go on with our lives as usual.
I disagree strongly for thinking that a "major inconvenience" is not warranted when trying to stand up for what you believe in . In a world where we as individuals feel unable to affect change, I applaud individuals
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One step further (Score:2)
We should go further : ask for a law that protects DNSs and internet freedom. Even a constitutional amendment, why not ?
International users (Score:2)
I wish these sites would limit the black-out to US users instead of making it a blanket black-out. Yes, I know SOPA and its ilk would affect everyone, but as a non-US citizen, there isn't a damn thing I can do to stop it.
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I live here and now you know how we feel.
Google blackout (Score:3)
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a whole 24 hours? (Score:3, Funny)
Donation Catchup Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't given any money to Wikipedia in a long time. This seems like a good opportunity to catch up on my donations. I figure to do it while the blackout is in progress, if the donation page is up, or right after if they have donations blacked out.
It is easy to find examples of people getting paid to do things that harm society. Here's a chance to pay a company, which has earned the money, for doing the right thing. They even make the first show of good faith -- every day -- by existing, not charging, and not accepting advertisements.
Will Slashdot Be Joining The Blackout? (Score:5, Insightful)
If not, please consider it.
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So, why isn't Slahdot (Score:2)
Doesn't anybody see the problems with this? (Score:3)
I understand the incentives for this sort of action, but bear in mind that this sort of "going dark" is the result of a conscious decision by participants such as Wikipedia, and not a direct ramification of the actual passing of this bill. It's a peaceful protest that will probably inconvenience a lot of people, and might even gather significant publicity, but I fear is likely to only be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate the Senate to further a particular agenda, rather than awaken anyone to the real problems with the bill, simply because so few people really understand the principles that make the bill a bad idea from the outset.
"Going dark" is much more likely to be viewed as akin to throwing a temper tantrum because one is not getting their way than it is any sort of sincere attempt to awaken anybody to the problems that this bill actually presents.... because I really can't see that it will.
Go Global, STOP ACTA (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm putting on a flame-retardant suit (Score:2)
Stop the blackout plan (Score:3, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again. When groups like Wikipedia and Google and Facebook and Twitter all go on to do this blackout thing, all arguments in favor of the people go out the window, because it becomes an industry vs industry battle. Even though we the people and the aforementioned groups are opposed to SOPA/PIPA, we are not on the same side - they have their own interests, and while some of them may or may not coincide with ours, our own interests are not being represented when they do this.
When the blackout happens, the government will just see it as a battle between the industries, and it will render the lay peoples' arguments inaudible. If PIPA gets shut down as a reaction to Wikipedia et al, it will be seen as a victory for them, not a victory for us. We will celebrate, sure, but the government and supporters won't be any closer to understanding the part we played and how drastically it would have affected us on a fundamental level had it passed; they'll be just as tempted to introduce new legislation later on until they eventually get their way. Remember, corporations and industries aren't afraid of each other, they are afraid of informed voters.
As for the "educational" prospect of what Wikipedia et al are doing, convincing people who don't understand what's going on into rallying against SOPA/PIPA just by shutting down important websites is not really a fair tactic, and they won't be educated so much as enraged and desperate to reach any solution that would bring it back. You could shut down Facebook and put a message on there that people need to run through the streets naked to bring it back, and the United States would become a nudist nation overnight. While education is certainly important, we need to educate each other with fair and open discussion and debate, not with scare tactics from groups which have their own separate interests in mind. That's not to say that the information Wikipedia and others will post isn't going to be accurate or true, or that the information and commercials being fed to the public by SOPA/PIPA supporters isn't a load of bunk, but all of that can be posted on these websites without actually shutting down the services - the blackouts themselves are specifically designed to elicit an emotional response, not a rational one, and that's not the kind of tactic we want to employ or endorse.
While it's nice to have some big name support, this is our battle which we need to win on our own, and we should really encourage Wikipedia and others not to go through with this blackout plan.
How about slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will slashdot join this protest?
Punish the Bill Sponsors (Score:3)
The one thing more powerful for elected officials than bribes (campaign donations), is fear of losing the next election. So contact the bill sponsors, and let them know why you will be voting for/sending money to/campaigning for their opponent. Do that even if the bills die in this congressional session. They need to be spanked, hard, for ever supporting this kind of bill, so the next time big media comes around (and they will, you know they will) they will remember this is a politically life threatening topic.
It's either that, or nuke them from orbit, it's the only ways to be sure.
Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The primary reason for creating SOPA and PIPA is to get around the pesky inconvenience of having to deal with all those other countries and their own sets of laws. Because the US controls .com, .net, and .org as well as having both IANA and ICANN, big media could simply use the courts they have bought here in the US without having to deal with that annoying inconvenience of other sovereign nations and their own sets of laws.
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These laws will *NOT* only affect the USA. They will affect other countries, and especially countries that extradite people to the USA when they feel like it (*hint*).
Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy. (Score:5, Informative)
We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations. For example, one British editor stated "American law is America's business, but law that affects Wikipedia worldwide is an issue of worldwide interest", a principle we felt had considerable support.
Re:Yeah, thanks Jimmy. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Internet isn't a national thing. If something hurts a part of it, the whole net gets hurt.
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The USA has been bullying other countries into passing similar legislation, effectively saying, "If you can't get such legislation passed, we'll consider you a bad country and take you off of our trade lists."
Imagine the "egg on their face" effect when the country pressuring others to pass such legislation or be a "bad country" in regards to trade laws isn't able to pass such legislation themselves.
SOPA/PIPA affect the entire planet, whether directly (due to control of com/net/etc domains) or indirectly (ha
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Well, it is only the English version of Wikipedia. Which means that non-English speakers in the US (Spanish for example) are unaffected, but English speakers outside the US are stuck.
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Re:Here is a blackout page suggestion: (Score:5, Interesting)
A better one....
This is exactly how much content will be left when every publisher and celebrity makes up a reason to force Wikipedia to take down their pages.
Wikipedia has cleaned up its copyright problems... But it could never have been created in the enviroent about to be unleashed.
Maybe that is the argument to make:
List every large tech company that violated the hell out of IP laws they want to impose on everybody else. Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, etc could all have been kicked off the Internet (if we had the Internet) when they were "growing up".
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What is wrong with the kinds learning something about how important the Internet is for them ?