Wikipedia has decided to black out the English version of the online encyclopedia for 24 hours on Wednesday to protest against controversial legislation in the U.S., following a cue given by some other Internet sites including social news site Reddit which will black out its site for 12 hours on the same day, IDG News Service reports.
Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo however said in a message on Twitter that "Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish". He later clarified that he was talking about Twitter and not about Wikipedia's decision.
Wikimedia Foundation said on Monday that the Wikipedia community had chosen to black out its English version to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Protect IP Act (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," Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, said in a statement on its website.
The protesting websites – which reportedly also will include Mozilla, WordPress and TwitPic – plan to act Wednesday despite the Obama administration's signal last weekend that it wanted changes in the anti-piracy legislation, according to The Los Angeles Times.
"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet," said a statement from three White House officials: Victoria Espinel, intellectual property enforcement coordinator; Aneesh Chopra, U.S. chief technology officer; and Howard Schmidt, cybersecurity coordinator for the national security staff.
Internet operators – including giants such as Google Inc. and EBay Inc. – have opposed the legislation because they said it would let companies move to block websites and, in one version, even take away their user addresses if they are deemed to have misappropriated any content.
