[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA

[Milos Rancic]

Wikimedia Serbia also supports English Wikipedians [1] (English
grammar fixes are welcome :) ):

Wikimedia Serbia wants to express solidarity with English Wikipedians
in protest against the proposed laws -- SOPA and PIPA --, which
undermine the freedom of information on Internet.

Unlike the laws in other countries of the world, laws in the United
States of America affect the whole world, as the main Internet
institutions are US based organizations.

However, general behavior of the authorities of United States have
much wider consequences: Freedom of expression in many parts of the
world heavily depends on hard stance of US authorities in favor of
them. Laws like SOPA and PIPA would create devastating consequences in
many parts of the world, where freedom of expression is still fragile.

[1] http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stav_1/2012

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 02:09, Jay Walsh <jwalsh at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> *English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
> *
> San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
> unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
> English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
> legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
> U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. 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.
>
> Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
> a public statement (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_conclusion
> ):
>
> Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
> together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
> against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
> a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
> of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
> overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
> greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
> considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
> English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
> opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
>
> “Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
> to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
> "This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
> regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
> a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
> speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
> precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
>
> We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
> United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
> https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
> contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
> branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
> internet to remain open and free.
>
> *About the Wikimedia Foundation
> *http://wikimediafoundation.org
> http://blog.wikimedia.org
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
> Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
> Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
> receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
> fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
> Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
> articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
> people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
> audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
> grants.
>
>
> *Media Contact:
> *
> Jay Walsh
> Head of Communications
> Wikimedia Foundation
> Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
> jwalsh at wikimedia.org
>
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