Wikipedia’s day of darkness foiled by mobile users and alternative addresses

By Jennifer O’Mahony
Published on Wednesday 18 January 2012 12:04

Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia is offline for 24 hours today in protest against a forthcoming bill in the US Senate designed to stop online piracy.

However, the “day of darkness” has been ridiculed by some who have found access to Wikipedia easily through their mobile phones or through alternative addresses like Wikipedia.fr, the French version of the site.

The user-generated encyclopedia simply displays a black screen with the words ‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge’ and a short paragraph about the protest when users try to access an article.

Wikipedia joins social news site Reddit and popular blog Boing Boing in the protest against the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ currently being considered by the US Senate.

Wikipedia states on its website: “For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history.

“Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

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antiparasite

Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 01:06 AM

2... This would be last place I'd come for a credible source of news... I come here to see what the stupid brits are telling the gullible.....

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GibsonNSW

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 11:56 PM

Wikipedia...Google...Yahoo...they are all possible, future, fascist organisations. We know of a coming world leader. The Bible calls him the Beast or the antichrist (common term). We see his ID system in Revelation 13:16-18 and 14:9-11. All of these companies love fame and wealth. They cant be trusted to not go with the Beast. We would be wise not to put much info on the net or with these groups.

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Velv

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 02:47 PM

Jennifer O'Mahony clearly hasn't researched anything about the web blackout and doesn't understand how the Internet functions at a technical level. Wikipedia made it clear that it was the English language website that would carry the message, and to the average user of the English language version that is exactly what it does. So of course .fr is in the clear. The English language version is still in the clear if you stop the page loading before the "censorship" kicks in - that's how web blocking works - the whole point of the exercise!!! One of the principle reason the SOPA and PIPA are dangerous are they make it legal to censor material without going through a court. The Pirates will always find a way around the censorship, so the censorship will only be used on legitimate free speech.

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jakers

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 01:56 PM

#1, is this "rag" not providing you with FREE news....??

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antiparasite

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 01:13 PM

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