Just a blog: Wikipedia Is Doing a Blackout to Protest Against SOPA/PIPA

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Wikipedia Is Doing a Blackout to Protest Against SOPA/PIPA - DailyBlogTips

Wikipedia Is Doing a Blackout to Protest Against SOPA/PIPA

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 08:25 PM PST

If you visit the English Wikipedia right now (or within some hours) you’ll probably see a lot of black. No need to panic though, it’s a schedule protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills that are being promoted in the US.

Here’s the description from their announcement:

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.

This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it's a decision that wasn't lightly made. Here's how it's been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community's discussion.

If I had more time available I would blackout DBT as well to support the protest. If you are planning to do it, though, make sure you do it the right way to not risk damaging your search rankings. Search Engine Land published an article explaining how to do it.

The basic idea is to return a 503, which is the error code for “temporarily unavailable.” If you simply return a 404 Google’s bots for sure won’t like it.

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Original Post: Wikipedia Is Doing a Blackout to Protest Against SOPA/PIPA