According to Co-Founder Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia will be going dark for 24 hours on Wednesday to protest against the the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Jimmy Wales tweeted
“This is going to be wow,” reads one tweet. “I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!”
25 million daily visitors will be affected according to Wales (the total number of English Visitors). Wikipedia has over 420m unique monthly visitors, and there are over 20 million articles on Wikipedia across almost 300 languages.
Visitors within the blackout period will be greeted with a screen explaining Wikipedia’s stance on the bill and information on how to take action against SOPA. – Exactly how Wales hope Wikipedia will melt phones. Along with Reddit, Wikipedia joins huge Internet names like WordPress, Mozilla, and all of the Cheezburger properties in Wednesday’s “black out” protest.
The Act, if passed, endangers the future of Internet content sites by holding them directly accountable for content placed on them. That way, the government will control the flow of information and a lot of web based businesses will be affected.
