admincomputer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. “Before we know it, we’re blacked out because we want to save the whales.”
Wikipedia’s English-language site shut down at midnight ET Tuesday, and the organisation said it would stay down for 24 hours.
Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors to the site saw a stark black-and-white page with the message: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” It carried a link to information about the two congressional Bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.
It is the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia’s Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship Bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The Bill did not advance.
The shutdown adds to a growing body of critics who are speaking out against the legislation.
But some editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship. – AP.
One of the site’s own “five pillars” of conduct says that Wikipedia “is written from a neutral point of view”. The site strives to “avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them”.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.
“The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened,” he tweeted.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which administers the site, announced the blackout late Monday, after polling its community of volunteer contributors and editors and getting responses from 1 800 of them. The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate.
“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 foundation said.
Both Bills are designed to crack down on sales of pirated American products overseas, and they have the support of the film and music industry. Among the opponents are many Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and AOL. They say the Bills would hurt the industry and infringe on free-speech rights. – AP.
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