Wikipedia is going to shut down their English website for Wednesday in protest of SOPA or stop online piracy act. The SOPA act has been in the controversy for some time and there are two big sides supporting and opposing it. “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,” the Wikimedia foundation said.
The Wikipedia website will be down on Wednesday to show their protest for the bill. Major internet giants like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Twitter, AOL and Wikipedia has already registered their protest against the SOPA. The bill is currently with the US House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate is designed to crack down on sales of pirated US products overseas.
The bills are aimed at cracking down the piracy. The bill is supported by Music and Film industry. Shutting down services by Wikipedia on Wednesday is a big move and is bound to create waves in the market. Technology industry is concerned that bill may adversely impact industry. Other internet giants like Reddit and Boing Boing has already announced their plans to stop services for one day to protest against the bill.
The news of shutting down was announced earlier by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been quite vocal about their reservations for this bill. The stop online piracy act is expected to act against websites and online communities.
“I am personally asking everyone who cares about freedom and openness on the Internet to contact their Senators and Representative,” Wales said. “One of the things we have learned recently during the Arab spring events is that the Internet is a powerfully effective tool for the public to organize and have their voices heard.”
As the debate is heating up, lot of open voices are expected to come against this bill in the coming days.
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