Though the blackout’s over, there’s still much work to be done. That’s the message from Wikipedia today following the end of a 24-hour protest against Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).
After the blackout, Wikipedia posted the following thank you message to its supporters:
You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet. … SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. What’s happened in the last 24 hours, though, is extraordinary. The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine, and as Wikipedia went dark, you’ve directed your energy to protecting it.
The blackout, which some lambasted as a “publicity stunt,” received a huge amount of attention. The Wikipedia landing page for the day was viewed by more than 162 million people, while the blog post announcing the measure was commented upon more than 12,000 times, with the vast majority of commenters supporting the decision.
More pertinently for SOPA/PIPA critics, around 8 million people found the contact information for their elected representatives using Wikipedia’s tools. The site also noted several SOPA- and PIPA-related topics that trended on Twitter, including #FactsWithoutWikipedia, #SOPAStrike and #wikipediablackout, the latter of which apparently accounted for one percent of all tweets at one point yesterday.
Wikipedia says (without citation, ironically) that the House of Representatives will push SOPA forward next month, and a Senate vote on PIPA is scheduled for Jan. 24.
As such, it claims there’s still a lot to do in order to ensure the legislation never makes it into law. The site encourages visitors to call their representatives to encourage them to renounce the proposed legislation.
Meanwhile, visits to Wikipedia’s mobile website, which remained available during the blackout, jumped 14% from the previous day, reported Experian Hitwise.
There’s some way to go before SOPA and PIPA are truly killed off. For now, students everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief that Wikipedia is freely accessible again.
Photo by jewschool
