[Foundation-l] How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia

[phoebe ayers]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 4:08 AM, emijrp <emijrp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all;
>
> Looks like Wikimedia Foundation is very worried about censorship and the
> cut off of fundraising payment processors. Now.
>
> What did WMF do when WikiLeaks domains were seized and its fundraising
> payment processors (PayPal, Visa, MasterCard) were cut off? Did WMF protest
> against Internet censorship? No.
>
> WMF did nothing. Well, Wikipedia community wrote this disclaimer "WikiLeaks
> is not affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation"[1] on the
> top, and turned a blind eye.
>
> Now it is your turn. Enjoy.
>
> Regards,
> emijrp
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks


I think what happened to WikiLeaks is atrocious. But this protest is
to try and prevent a similar thing from happening again to *any* site,
ever. This legislation would make such attacks legally permissible,
and we oppose it, and not just because it could affect Wikimedia too.

best,
-- Phoebe
WMF Board of Trustees