SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills?
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Wednesday, Jan. 18: the day of the SOPA ‘blackout’ protest. As you may have seen from our coverage, major names in the online world such as Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit are censoring their own websites with black bars and blacked-out pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA, two online anti-piracy bills currently under consideration on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers who support the bills say the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act will protect the intellectual property rights of music, movie and TV studios. But the websites and tech giants taking part in the Wednesday blackout argue that SOPA and PIPA would allow for a censoring of the Internet that would forever alter the Web and what we can do, say and publish online.
And it’s not just Silicon Valley that’s protesting SOPA and PIPA in the day-long blackout -- a few publications that cover the tech world are taking part as well, including Wired and ArsTechnica.
Here’s a list of more than 30 websites (and screen shots of each) we’ve spotted that are protesting today in the form of full-on blackouts or even just making their anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA stances known publicly. If there are a few we’ve missed, feel free to let us know in the comments.
Wikipedia.org
Google.com
Craigslist.org
Mozilla Firefox’s start page
BoingBoing.net
Reddit.com
ArsTechnica.com
Wired.com
TheVerge.com
OReilly.com
TechCrunch.com
MoveOn.org
WordPress.com
Xkcd.com
Fark.com
4Chan.com
GigaOm.com
FunnyOrDie.com
PerezHilton.com
GoDaddy.com
KnowYourMeme.com
Imgur.com
BoardgameGeek.com
Newgrounds.com
UrbanSpoon.com
DemocraticUnderground.com
JoinDiaspora.com
Heritage.org
GameBreaker.tv
Pocho.com
RateYourMusic.com
SparkFun.com
DayTrader.com
TextsFromLastNight.com
[Updated 12:29 p.m.: GigaOm.com is also against SOPA and PIPA, and on Wednesday the news site let that stance be known.]
[Updated 2:49 p.m.: Added the Jan. 18 anti-SOPA and PIPA protests on FunnyOrDie.com, PerezHilton.com, GoDaddy.com, KnowYourMeme.com, Imgur.com, BoardgameGeek.com, Newgrounds.com, UrbanSpoon.com, DemocraticUnderground.com and JoinDiaspora.com.]
[Updated 3:15 p.m.: Added the anti-SOPA and PIPA Jan. 18 stances seen on Heritage.org, GameBreaker.tv, Pocho.com, RateYourMusic.com and SparkFun.com.]
[Updated 4:51 p.m.: Added DayTrader.com’s blacked-out Jan. 18 homepage.]
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: Screenshots (made using the Mac app LittleSnapper) of websites taking part in the Jan. 18, 2011 protests against SOPA and PIPA by either blacking out their websites, or publishing statements condemning the controversial anti-piracy bills.