@Dany said:

Wikipedia is down

I need to use Wikipedia

Fuck congress.

Use it on your phone, brah! Works just fine there!

@Kandycane2029: I guess that is another alternative way of accessing english Wikipedia

@jakob187 said:

@Dany said:

Wikipedia is down

I need to use Wikipedia

Fuck congress.

Use it on your phone, brah! Works just fine there!

I ain't going to look up chemical formula's, read through hibakusha discrimination or read about proline in the human body on my phone.

Why would you shut down for a week to protest something that has a 0.002351% of actually coming into existence?

I could not agree with the OP more. It sounds just like when a celebrity donates $1,000 or their time to charity. Their only reason for being involved is free publicity.

Nothing happened...

Well, my Google is just the standard Google. I guess that it was just the American version? Then again, it's a fucking pain to try to change to another language since it changes back to your own automatically.

@jakob187 said:

Wikipedia will be shutting down the English-language version of its website for 24 hours tomorrow. /slowclap Congrat-you-fucking-lations. Meanwhile, I'm going to open my browser up, load another version in some other language, and then hit the "Translate" button. It may not be perfect, but it will serve my purpose well enough.

Thanks for this. I was worried I wasn't going to have my wiki tomorrow.

@jakob187: Google's "blackout" worked for me. I did not know what it was until I clicked on it, I knew about the bills but I did not care enough to look how to sign up but Google provided a easy a fast way to sign up, so I did. So you can at least chalk up one more vote because of Google's SUPER........EFFECTIVE..........PROTESTING.

Google and Wikipedia have never really taken a political stance like this. I believe these protests will be hugely successful.

I read the blog post and avoided posting my own comment. Every half hour or so I'd refresh the forums, and saw that this thread was still floating near the top of the first page. People were commenting, and I wanted to avoid it because I'd expected the discussions to have devolved into a flaming mess by this point.

I was wrong.

What you have done, OP, is started a discussion about SOPA/PIPA, and the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of blacking out sites in protest. The real success of this blackout won't be measured by the disruption it causes. It will be measured by how many discussions were started because of it.

Discussions like this.

So while you may disagree with the effectiveness of blacking out websites, this forum thread was started to discuss it, and people are still talking about it. Clearly, it was effective on this very small part of the Internet. So did the blackout succeed? It succeeded here.

Today is my birthday. I've been aware of SOPA for months and knew the blackout was happening, but what a surprise I got when I went to look up something on the Skyrim wiki and got hit with their SOPA page. I didn't know they were also doing it. I'm curious to browse around now and see how many sites are putting up SOPA pages. It's amazing that the mainstream media has largely ignored SOPA, which I'm sure has nothing to do with their parent companies supporting the bill, but that will all stop because of this blackout.

@Ubersmake said:

I read the blog post and avoided posting my own comment. Every half hour or so I'd refresh the forums, and saw that this thread was still floating near the top of the first page. People were commenting, and I wanted to avoid it because I'd expected the discussions to have devolved into a flaming mess by this point.

I was wrong.

What you have done, OP, is started a discussion about SOPA/PIPA, and the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of blacking out sites in protest. The real success of this blackout won't be measured by the disruption it causes. It will be measured by how many discussions were started because of it.

Discussions like this.

So while you may disagree with the effectiveness of blacking out websites, this forum thread was started to discuss it, and people are still talking about it. Clearly, it was effective on this very small part of the Internet. So did the blackout succeed? It succeeded here.

This was well put. If the discussion of over SOPA/PIPA intensifies, it will not only cause greater awareness, but it will inspire greater action in larger numbers. I think it was smarter for Silicon Valley to save its funds for an even greater push that even more people can be behind. Even with what we have done so far, the DNS restriction aspect of SOPA has been eliminated entirely. While we definitely shouldn't stop there, we've achieved something that has demonstrated our potential impact in overturning SOPA/PIPA altogether.

It's not like today is supposed to be the end - I think starting today there'll be an even more concentrated effort against SOPA/PIPA as long as we keep up the discussions and formulate an even stronger resolve against the bills.

JC the net's going... the net's going black, JC! No more infolinks, transmissions of any kind. We'll start again, live in villages. If you receive this, if you survive, then find us... find us!

I didn't even know what SOPA was until I saw it on Giant Bomb two weeks ago. If Google would have put something up on their page, I would have known faster.

@Brunchies said:

I dont think wikipedia gets that much money from there site, if they did you would see advertising all over that site. Besides, 24 hours without wikipedia will probably make enough kids fail an assignment or cause headaches for someone to prove a point.

Also, they were asking for donations just a little bit ago.

@dudeglove said:

#firstworldproblems

I CANNOT fucking stand that expression. I'm sorry we aren't all poor, starving African children, but I think I'm allowed to have a problem with something, thank you very much!

Like most of these people, I disagree with you on this one, jakob. It's a nice idea, but it's a terrible long-term investment. If I thought Gmail was going to shut down every time Google felt like protesting something, you damn well bet I would no longer use Gmail as my primary business email. Even if I agreed with them the first time they did it, I need that business email to stay open, and the first time I disagree is the first time shit gets real frustrating between me and Gmail.

Already by 4:00 AM, my Facebook is flooded with SOPA commentary and people raging about it. I will say the biggest problem with blacking out the internet in the first place is that its primary userbase is too young to vote en masse, though.

@Ubersmake said:

So while you may disagree with the effectiveness of blacking out websites, this forum thread was started to discuss it, and people are still talking about it. Clearly, it was effective on this very small part of the Internet. So did the blackout succeed? It succeeded here.

This. So much of this. It's super effective because the action has caused a forum thread to be created by Jakob, who has in turn informed other people about SOPA. And now they're looking up information on it and telling their friends and family about it. Google and Wikipedia are beautiful masterminds.

I don't know what it is and I really don't care.

Keep your American politics off my internet.

@President_Barackbar said:

@dudeglove said:

#firstworldproblems

I CANNOT fucking stand that expression. I'm sorry we aren't all poor, starving African children, but I think I'm allowed to have a problem with something, thank you very much!

Ya, I can't wait until that meme, and everyone uses it, dies a slow painful death. It's prevalence of being used every time someone has any kind of rational complaint by some idiot online makes me hate Louis CK for making it a thing.

CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and many other have reported it. And there are several trending topics on twitter that are related to SOPA or Wikipedia. They definitely succeeded with what they set out to do (i.e. inform people about SOPA).

@President_Barackbar said:

@dudeglove said:

#firstworldproblems

I CANNOT fucking stand that expression. I'm sorry we aren't all poor, starving African children, but I think I'm allowed to have a problem with something, thank you very much!

Ya, I can't wait until that meme, and everyone uses it, dies a slow painful death. It's prevalence of being used every time someone has any kind of rational complaint by some idiot online makes me hate Louis CK for making it a thing.

During class today we had a discussion about SOPA because my teacher wasn't even aware of it until this morning when they tried to look something up on Wikipedia. At least the blackout is making those who use the internet less then us more aware.

@Example1013 said:

No what we need is to bomb the internet, just like the Japanese did in 1942. THAT would make Jan. 18 a day that would live in infamy.

That was 1941. If Wikipedia was up you would know that.

@Ubersmake said:

So while you may disagree with the effectiveness of blacking out websites, this forum thread was started to discuss it, and people are still talking about it. Clearly, it was effective on this very small part of the Internet. So did the blackout succeed? It succeeded here.

This guy is right. OP got totally played by Google, WIkipedia and Reddit.

@Rohok said:

@Example1013 said:

No what we need is to bomb the internet, just like the Japanese did in 1942. THAT would make Jan. 18 a day that would live in infamy.

That was 1941. If Wikipedia was up you would know that.

December 7th, 1941. I was of course referencing the fact that either the President or the Secretary of War called December 7th "a day that will live in infamy". That may or may not be on Wikipedia, I haven't read the article, but it's something to know about a date that's pretty goddamn important in my country's history.

Also, something else:

SOPA and Protect IP, as it is right now, has the Congress saying "oh, no...U.S. sites can't be affected by this legislation...we'd only be able to shut down international stuff..."

Isn't that basically how North Korea started their whole "keeping the people in the dark" thing? Seems a lot like how there was a government-imposed media blackout on the Occupy movements until people said "bullshit, show it".

EDIT: OH MAN! BLACKOUTS ARE STARTING! Check out Google's big contribution! MAN, SO EFFECTIVE! -_- Fucking ridiculous. https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en

Regardless of what could or should have been done I have to say I've had a lot of my non-technically or legally minded friends and associates start asking and posting about SOPA/PIPA today and yesterday. It's interesting because I've been posting and talking about this stuff for quite some time and yet it's taken today's protests and postings to really get the message past their normal apathy barriers.

I guess we have to ask ourselves what is the definition of effective action. If the point to defeat the current versions of the bills there's been a victory in regards to SOPA and we're waiting to see on PIPA. If the point is to create a long term consciousness about speech, the internet, and freedom we're probably not there yet but this contributes (but that was always going to be an ongoing fight anyways).

The thing about issues like this is that you don't just win a battle on these issues and are victorious forever more. You can defeat a bill or law after massive effort but those victories can be undone by years of complacency. If the issue really matters to you it has to be something you speak up about in the long term and you put your money where your mouth is. Make allies where you can but understand that standing boldly in the line of fire isn't the best option for everyone at all times. Sometimes that's just suicide.

The point was to get the word out, not inconvenience their users. Yes, people can still use Wikipedia, but not without suddenly becoming aware of the issue.

It's the hot and trending topic in the news now, so I'd say they're already accomplishing what they set out to do. Remaining blacked out wouldn't make much more difference... but it could potentially hurt their business and employees. As companies they've already made an incredibly bold and admirable move.

Seems pretty effective to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/technology/web-protests-piracy-bill-and-2-key-senators-change-course.html?_r=2

Edit: Removed sarcasm because it was meant to be a response to the sarcasm in lines like "Check out Google's big contribution! MAN, SO EFFECTIVE!" but I wasn't sure if that was clear.

@jakob187 said:

@AiurFlux: I would hope that it wouldn't just be Google that would do something of the sort. Essentially, the idea I was putting forth was that many companies would look past their greed and realize that freedoms are at stake. I'm aware that it wouldn't happen.

As for Wikipedia being that massive, I'm not denying that it's not. At the same time, what effect will you actually see from the English-language Wikipedia site being down for 24 hours when you can do a translation feature in your browser that will get you essentially the same information? No, it's not going to be word-for-fucking-word the same as the English version. However, to say that Wikipedia is shutting down is foolish. They are closing one portion - which is the biggest portion, sure - of their website. However, they are not blocking the capability for people to see how bad internet censorship can be.

@CrazyBagMan said:

Some people are just never happy. Wait until you see the results before you start crying that it wasn't enough, at least.

It's not about "not being happy". It's about looking at the pieces and being able to say "a website like Reddit down for 12 hours is almost the equivalent of downtime for an MMO when patching" or "Wikipedia down for 24 hours is the equivalent of Wal-Mart being closed for Christmas Day". It's an inconvenience, but you know it's going to be back up tomorrow.

If you force people to understand "no, this could go down forEVER", that's when people say "oh damn, we need to do something".

As AiurFlux pointed out, people would go to another source. However, if Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc all went down...if every search engine were dead for, let's just say 48 hours even, people would realize how much they rely on these things. They would realize how harmful any form of legislation that could potentially lead to internet censorship could be.

I would hope so as well, but it seems we both know that somebody out there would take advantage to get a majority share.

And having alternate options to access Wikipedia is fine. But fact of the matter is that when you initially use Wikipedia you will be exposed to this issue, potentially for the first time, and most people will want to learn more about it. Most people will be inconvenienced about it and some very well could call their congressman or congresswoman and ask what in the fuck is going on and why is the government trying to seize more and more control. And right then and there Wikipedia going black succeeds in exposing people to the issue as a whole who never knew about it. I know I'm talking about hypothetical situations, but so are you with the insinuation that some people will be smart enough to use Google Translate. Keeping it mobile only as well is also an inconvenience because we know that people would rather use their computer and have a nice big screen. Disabling JavaScript is something that the average user will have no idea what to do. I know a few people that saw it go dark and were pretty pissed off, not with Wikipedia though, but with the US government for thinking that SOPA/PIPA was a good idea.

That said it seems to have worked rather well. Could have gone better and the ideal thing would be the internet grinding to a halt for 24 hours and people losing their shit, but again greed is a mighty urge so that won't happen.

@Example1013 said:

@Rohok said:

@Example1013 said:

No what we need is to bomb the internet, just like the Japanese did in 1942. THAT would make Jan. 18 a day that would live in infamy.

That was 1941. If Wikipedia was up you would know that.

December 7th, 1941. I was of course referencing the fact that either the President or the Secretary of War called December 7th "a day that will live in infamy". That may or may not be on Wikipedia, I haven't read the article, but it's something to know about a date that's pretty goddamn important in my country's history.

I wasn't calling you out or anything, was just making a joke about the wikipedia website being down and not being able to look up dates for events in history.

@Rohok said:

@Example1013 said:

@Rohok said:

@Example1013 said:

No what we need is to bomb the internet, just like the Japanese did in 1942. THAT would make Jan. 18 a day that would live in infamy.

That was 1941. If Wikipedia was up you would know that.

December 7th, 1941. I was of course referencing the fact that either the President or the Secretary of War called December 7th "a day that will live in infamy". That may or may not be on Wikipedia, I haven't read the article, but it's something to know about a date that's pretty goddamn important in my country's history.

I wasn't calling you out or anything, was just making a joke about the wikipedia website being down and not being able to look up dates for events in history.

Idk where I was going with that tbh.

Well, this day has been disappointing

@jakob187 said:

If it was my millions on the line and I was the CEO of something as important as Facebook or Google or whatever, I would absolutely black something out for a week. That's just me personally. I believe principle over profit

That's just incredibly naive, and makes me understand why you would never be the CEO of something as important as Facebook, or Google, or whatever. Because it's about money, it's always about money. It's lost profits now versus lost profits in the future. It's measuring how much can be done with a 12 hour blackout versus how much can be done with a week-long shutdown, and considering the consequences of both as well.

While I agree with you, it's not good, at least it's something. And although that something ends up just being a pain in the ass for most people, it's not a "Day the Earth Stood Still" type event, which it would be if they froze Google or Facebook for a week. Want to talk about millions of dollars lost by those first party corporations, think about everyone else who advertises on Google, or pays to have their domain show up in a search engine. That would make riots in the fucking streets, moreso even than SOPA or PIPA passing.

Which will never fucking happen.

@deathstriker666: Did you watch the live show?! It was amazing.

Today was worth it just for that.

I think these blackouts are just a way to spread the word. There are people that had no idea what SOPA was until today. That's a good start.

@jakob187 said:

Looks like the Blackout day worked!

This is great news! Your skepticism has been rewarded with opposite news!

@AssInAss said:

@jakob187 said:

Looks like the Blackout day worked!

This is great news! Your skepticism has been rewarded with opposite news!

It makes me smile to know this.

At the same time, seeing that MegaUpload has been shut down and RapidFire is apparently up against the same thing shows that SOPA and PIPA don't even need to pass for this type of thing to start happening.