SAN FRANCISCO — Free online knowledge site Wikipedia has gone dark as part of a protest over legislation in the US Congress intended to crack down on online piracy.
The English version of the online encyclopedia shut down at midnight Tuesday ET.
The website will be inaccessible for 24 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate version, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
It was replaced with a message that read, “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge.”
“For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia,” it went on.
The site also provided a link to “Learn more,” which led to a Wikipedia page titled “SOPA and PIPA,” and called on people to make their voice heard using Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
Meanwhile, Google said it plans to use its much-visited US home page to draw attention to the bills while social news site reddit and the popular Cheezburger humor network plan to join Wikipedia in blacking out their sites, AFP reported.
The draft legislation has won the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce.
But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US authorities to shut down websites accused of online piracy, including foreign sites, without due process and threatening the technical architecture of the internet.
The founders of Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo! and other internet giants said in an open letter last month the legislation would give the US government “the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”
“Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the internet,” a Google spokesman said Tuesday.
“So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page,” the spokesman for the internet search giant said.
Reddit said it will shut down for 12 hours — from 8:00am ET to 8:00pm ET — to protest the legislation.
“We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the internet as we know it,” reddit said. “The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the internet enables is in jeopardy.”
Ben Huh, the founder of Cheezburger network, said on his Twitter feed that his 58 sites, which include icanhascheezburger.com, FAIL Blog and The Daily What, will observe a blackout Wednesday.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced plans to shut down the site in a message on his Twitter feed.
“Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!” Wales said.
“This is going to be wow. I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!” he said.
But Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said Monday that closing down Wikipedia for a day was a “foolish” idea.
“That’s just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” Costolo wrote on Twitter, in reply to a question from a reporter from tech website Radar.
Volunteer-staffed Wikipedia turned 11 years old on January 15 and boasts more than 20 million articles in 282 languages.
The White House expressed concern about the anti-online piracy bills in a statement over the weekend.
“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet,” it said.
“Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activit