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Wiki blackout draws millions

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 19 Jan 2012

The online voice of the world was overwhelming yesterday, as a protest against US Bills that would jeopardise a free and open Internet was sparked by the largest depot of information on the Internet, but Wikipedia says it is not done yet.

A 24-hour Wikipedia blackout, shored up by a host of other Web companies, including Reddit and Mozilla, yesterday elicited millions of responses, from social media commentary to phone calls to Congress.

The historic shutdown of the online information giant came as a reaction to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), currently making their way through the US houses of Congress. The Bills, aimed at foreign Web sites that contravene copyright, will result in the blocking and even shut down of many of the blogs, sites and information portals that the online world has come to use and rely on.

Executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation Sue Gardner says 162 million people saw Wikipedia's blackout page, between 7am yesterday and the same time this morning, which asked if users could imagine a world without free knowledge. “You said no. You shut down the Congressional switchboards, and you melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong.”

She says that, while SOPA and PIPA still ominously lurk in the shadows, what happened over the last 24-odd hours was extraordinary. “The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine and, as Wikipedia went dark, you've directed your energy to protecting it.”

Online continuum

Gardner says more than eight million US readers looked up their Congressional representatives through Wikipedia to protest SOPA and PIPA.

Within minutes of the blackout having started, #factswithoutwikipedia, #sopastrike, and “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” trended worldwide on Twitter. In the first hour of the blackout, #wikipediablackout constituted 1% of all tweets. More than 12 000 people posted comments of support on the Wikimedia Foundation's blog post announcing the blackout.

This morning, although Wikipedia is back up and running, it seems the buzz has not yet subsided in the social media world. Twitter trends on the South African front include #IfTheyShutDownTwitter and #FactsWithoutWikipedia, while “If SOPA” is still trending worldwide.

One tweet that echoes much of what is being exchanged between social networkers reads: “If SOPA shuts down Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc. What's the point of having Internet?” (sic)

Community goal

Today, a banner across the top of Wikipedia pages reads: “Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We're not done yet.)”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' Twitter account status reads “With your help, we will stop #SOPA” and all indications are that the fight to keep the Internet open and free will be an ongoing one.

The fight, says Gardner, has never been about money, but rather knowledge. “As a community of authors, editors, photographers and programmers, Wikipedians invite everyone to share and build upon the work already begun.”

She says in the space of just over a decade, “Wikipedians” have built the largest encyclopaedia in history.

Wikipedia's mission is to “empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity”, says Gardner.

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