Wikipedia down

Redirect message on the wiki website..

Sic' Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge
For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. 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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Everyone

Have you been living under a virtual rock? It has been all over the web that this was going to happen for weeks. I don't know why today was picked as the day to do it, but Wikipedia isn't the only site protesting SOPA today.

pizzaboy

The thing is if you use google chrome the page will be translated to english anyway. But maybe they will get their point across.

cyberguypr

Google went with the passive-aggressive approach.

Trifidw

In Firefox, press escape before the page changes. (Not sure if it is one of my addons that enable this?)

jamesleecoleman

Trifidw wrote: »

In Firefox, press escape before the page changes. (Not sure if it is one of my addons that enable this?)

It'll still go to the blackout page after getting to the main page.

Turgon

Everyone wrote: »

Have you been living under a virtual rock? It has been all over the web that this was going to happen for weeks. I don't know why today was picked as the day to do it, but Wikipedia isn't the only site protesting SOPA today.

Honestly the whole build up passed me by. Far too busy. I can't say Im suffering without wiki TBH.

Zartanasaurus

Hitting ESC works for me.

SpeakIT

If you speak another language, it doesn't block it out. Only English

colemic

For me, when I get the blacked out page, if I just refresh it goes away, and works fine...

Pishof

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... Learn_more

Quote:
Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?
The Wikipedia community, as part of their request to the Wikimedia Foundation to carry out this protest, asked us to ensure that we make English Wikipedia accessible in some way during an emergency. The English Wikipedia will be accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by completely disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page.

Disabling javascript in firefox works for me.

DevilWAH

Or you can just disable jave script as Wikipedia tells you to in the FAQ to allow you to bypass it

joehalford01

I'm glad they did something, this SOPA thing is ridiculous. The zip code representative thing is a nice touch too. I needed to look something up this morning, I knew it might be coming but was generally surprised they actually did something.

it_consultant

Everyone wrote: »

Have you been living under a virtual rock? It has been all over the web that this was going to happen for weeks. I don't know why today was picked as the day to do it, but Wikipedia isn't the only site protesting SOPA today.

These are American bills and Turgon is from Great Britain; it stands to reason that this is less of a news item in the UK than it is here.

Forsaken_GA

it_consultant wrote: »

These are American bills and Turgon is from Great Britain; it stands to reason that this is less of a news item in the UK than it is here.

Yeah, but as goes the US, so goes much of the rest of the world.

And sites like Britain use things like Google and Facebook and the like as well. Since these are US based companies, that legislation has the potential to take them out, and that has global ramifications. The US government is displaying the height of hubris in thinking they can legislate the internet.

Everyone

it_consultant wrote: »

These are American bills and Turgon is from Great Britain; it stands to reason that this is less of a news item in the UK than it is here.

No it doesn't stand to reason that at all. This has been GLOBAL news for a while. Quick search for "SOPA UK" returns a ton of bbc.co.uk articles on the matter.

it_consultant

I am defending that Turgon didn't know about this not that the bills are crappy! I don't think Turgon was living under the virtual rock, maybe a virtual blanket or something.

cyberguypr

it_consultant wrote: »

I am defending that Turgon didn't know about this not that the bills are crappy! I don't think Turgon was living under the virtual rock, maybe a virtual blanket or something.

I think he was actually working/studying while we were slacking checking Reddit, Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, etc.

it_consultant

Everyone wrote: »

No it doesn't stand to reason that at all. This has been GLOBAL news for a while. Quick search for "SOPA UK" returns a ton of bbc.co.uk articles on the matter.

This isn't really huge news in America in comparison to all the other news. We seem to know all about it because it is in our sphere of interest and knowledge. Right now most people in America are far more abreast with the Republican primaries and incompetent Italian cruise line captains. The whole reason that Wikipedia and Google are doing this is to get the message to more people...like Turgon, or my wife who had to ask me last night what the SOPA and IPPA (IP protection act or something) when she went to wikipedia and saw their notification. Mind you she listens to NPR morning edition and all things considered plus the 30 minute news at night and whatever headline is on MSNBC. She is not news insulated and she wasn't really aware of it.

Everyone

Maybe I should have specified internet news. No it has not been talked about much at all on TV news. I don't watch news much, but I can't say I've seen anything about it on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. The Daily Show took a small break from making fun of the Republican primaries and did a small bit on it, but that isn't exactly news.

Here's some examples of several sites (other than just Wikipedia) that are participating in the "black out"...
This Is What an Internet Protest Looks Like

RobertKaucher

it_consultant wrote: »

This isn't really huge news in America in comparison to all the other news. We seem to know all about it because it is in our sphere of interest and knowledge. Right now most people in America are far more abreast with the Republican primaries and incompetent Italian cruise line captains. The whole reason that Wikipedia and Google are doing this is to get the message to more people...like Turgon, or my wife who had to ask me last night what the SOPA and IPPA (IP protection act or something) when she went to wikipedia and saw their notification. Mind you she listens to NPR morning edition and all things considered plus the 30 minute news at night and whatever headline is on MSNBC. She is not news insulated and she wasn't really aware of it.

Odd, I've not posted a thing about this on FB and I'd say easily 1/3 of the people who are posting are not IT types or even very technical.

DevilWAH

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Yeah, but as goes the US, so goes much of the rest of the world.

And sites like Britain use things like Google and Facebook and the like as well. Since these are US based companies, that legislation has the potential to take them out, and that has global ramifications. The US government is displaying the height of hubris in thinking they can legislate the internet.

I would not be so sure, Google and Face book may by US based for now, but if these rules come in, I can quite see them moving to host or even up stickes completely to of shore or other counties with less restrictions. The US will become a China, may be not as severe, but as we know china has a whole different "internet" to the rest of the world.

Not only is is a stupid bill for freedom of speech, but if other countries decide not to follow, then the US might find it self in a very lonely place. The US don't own the internet they can only control inside there borders, and while we in the UK look on at the controversy over this bill. It does not have the high profile here. Remember the internet has over 2 billion users and only 270,million of these are from the US. China has over 3 times that amount and site behind there own internet policies.

Why should any the rest of us chose to follow US if they chose to pass this bill?

tpatt100

Nobody I know that works outside of IT knows about this or heard anything about it. It really hasn't been on the news that much and if it went mainstream would probably be misinterpreted anyways once you got to the DNS part.

Everyone

DevilWAH wrote: »

Why should any the rest of us chose to follow US if they chose to pass this bill?

The EU has been kicking around trying to enact similar laws since at least 2007. Look-up "ACTA".

Turgon

it_consultant wrote: »

I am defending that Turgon didn't know about this not that the bills are crappy! I don't think Turgon was living under the virtual rock, maybe a virtual blanket or something.

Yeah. Its been news over here certainly, the legislation thing, although if the wiki blackout was mentioned on the news some days ago I missed it. Im rather interested in news regarding economy and foreign affairs. I guess I have a tendency to switch off from tech related news in the evening if Im honest. Anyway... lots of people responding to the interesting situation described in the thread which is good.

Roguetadhg

The legislation has the potential to knock out a lot of websites we use a lot. We being technical people of all natures - Windows, Linux, Cisco, Novell, Apple. Like it or not, the internet connects everyone together. And it's connecting people constantly - Facebook, twitter, RSS feeds, Smart phones and data plans.

It feels like Napster revisited. This time, kiss a lot of websites good bye. Im sure websites will need to stop allowing uploads, because people will try to upload pictures. Any dropboxes, tinyurl, file downloading sites, DeviantArt. Anything that someone can possibly upload copyright items will probably get the ban hammer. Of course, kiss Youtube and Wiki goodbye.

Youtube has been fighting to stay alive by allowed copyright holders to file a complaint, and the complaint leads to a video without sound, deleted, not available in the country, etc. Youtube still has copyrighted stuff on it, things go through the cracks and generally I can see this site the first of many sites.

DevilWAH

Everyone wrote: »

The EU has been kicking around trying to enact similar laws since at least 2007. Look-up "ACTA".

Oh I know, but again UK is even less users.

In the end every country will try some thing, the internet as we know will be splintered as make the sharing of information impossible. Then there will be a period of rebuilding and methods to get around policies (much as they have in china) the fight for control will continue and nothing much will change.

They tried to ban Span and that hasn't exactly works. people find ways to make it all look legit. the illegal stuff does not need the internet as most people know it. I remember when it was all IRC chat rooms, and if the governments block the likes of Google from showing sites that host illegal soft ware. I will just go back under ground. File sharing has been around as long as the first internet packet was sent. Well before the search engines new about it.

With the new kids on the block coming through far more IT able than ever, of shore proxies will host secure proxies that users can connect to via secure connections acting as gateways to the "under-net", it not a new thing and it will just continue to grow. And at some point there will be a tipping point from where the undernet is a side from the internet till it becomes the main centre of traffic.

It just going in circles.

it_consultant

Lets not pretend that there aren't some websites out there specifically designed to pass copyrighted information illegally. One which many of us have found ourselves on occasionally, thepiratebay.org and similar torrent tracking sites. There is legitimate issue that needs to be resolved. The problem, in my estimation, is twofold. The recording industry and other backers really want to make some public examples and they have no idea how the internet really works.

Turgon

If this legislation passes is there not a risk that government could use it to take down content they just dont want out there using copyright violation as a pretext?

Forsaken_GA

Turgon wrote: »

If this legislation passes is there not a risk that government could use it to take down content they just dont want out there using copyright violation as a pretext?

That's exactly the problem. The intentions are altruistic (or at least, they're dressed up that way), but governments do have a tendency to abuse power.

cyberguypr

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

That's exactly the problem. The intentions are altruistic (or at least, they're dressed up that way), but governments do have a tendency to abuse power.

It's Patriot Act all over again.