"No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square, it would incite protests that would topple dictators and start a global wave of dissent. In 2011, protesters didn’t just voice their complaints; they changed the world."
Though the Occupy Wall Street (/Oakland, Austin, Dallas etc.) movement has largely disappeared, and Egypt seems to be moving toward an improved political situation, the year of the protester is not yet behind us. Today, January 18th is proof of that.
If you have been on a computer today, you have most likely seen or read that Wikepedia is "down."
To quote a CNN article:
"Wikipedia was among several websites to shut down Wednesday in protest of anti-piracy bills now in Congress that critics say could amount to censorship."
The site and several others went dark at midnight Tuesday; others followed suit later in the day.
The protest is in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act bill, a piece of proposed legislation that is working its way through the Congress. A Senate committee approved a similar bill in May called the Protect IP Act, which is now pending before the full Senate.
The controversy over SOPA and PIPA has turned into an all-out war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Media companies have united in favor of the bills, while tech's power players are throwing their might into opposing them.
OTHER BLACKOUT SITES
Wordpress
Firefox
Torrent Freak
I Can Has Cheezburger?
BT Junkie
Greenpeace
LIST OF BLACKOUT SUPPORTERS
*taken from Google*
AOL Boing Boing BuzzFeed CloudFlare Copyblogger ConsumerBell Creative Commons Curse Daily Kos deviantART Discover Disqus DreamHost Dyn eBay Embedly Engine Advocacy Entertainment Consumers Association       ESET Etsy Fantagraphics foursquare Gandi GreenHostIt HostGator Hover I Can Has Cheezburger? IndieGoGo Internet Archive Irregular Times Jive Software Kaspersky Lab |
Kickstarter MetaFilter Mozilla Name.com Namecheap OpenDNS O’Reilly Radar Pastebin.com PayPal Quora Rackspace ReferralCanday Riot Games ServInt Scribd Teachers Pay Teachers Techdirt Torrentfreak Tucows Tumblr Ubu Web Uservoice Vimeo Webs, Inc. Wikipedia WordPress Yahoo! Y Combinator Zopim Zynga Game Network |
Ultimately, this bill and the decisions made in regards to it, will dramatically effect this nation, and will probably set precedence more internet censorship around the world. You and I will be most directly affected. Not our parents, most certainly not our grandparents, but young adults and the future generations to come. I urge you look into this issue more, become informed, and hopefully sign a petition.
"Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs."       -Google
**ADDITION:     FACEBOOK'S VIEWS
The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.
The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet.             -Mark Zuckerberg