by IRIS Solutions
January 19, 2012
On Wednesday, January 18, 2012, many of our beloved websites took to the net in protest. Several websites shutdown, or "blacked" themselves out to show their opposition for the proposed PIPA (Protect IP Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bills. These bills are intended to take aim at copyright infringement and internet piracy, though many against these bills say they will dissolve personal expression on the internet and leave too much control in the hands of our government. While the bills have not yet been voted on they are facing support and opposition from all sides, making it a hot topic in the coming weeks. We won't get into any of our political beliefs, but here are a few major websites that participated in the protest:
- Wikipedia, the internet's largest open-source collection of information, shut down completely for over 24 hours
- Craiglist's landing page showed a petition that portrayed strong opposition for the proposed PIPA and SOPA bills
- Google blacked out its own logo to show support for the opposition
- Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter also aired its concerns regarding SOPA yesterday, although they declined to take part in the blackouts
- According to Twitter, there were over 30 million Tweets regarding the PIPA and SOPA bills
Were you affected or inconvenienced by any of these websites? Let us know!
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