Collegiate Times

Potential legislation that would alter Internet media sharing is creating quite a storm in the online world, as Wikipedia is leading a 24-hour website blackout today.

The pieces of legislation in question are the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House of Representatives, as well as PROTECTIP, or PIPA, in the Senate.

SOPA would take aim at sites that host pirated content. It would restrict United States access to the sites and also require service sites such as Google to stop linking to the sites.

SOPA has garnered backlash because it could potentially punish sites such as YouTube for content their users post. Many tech companies such as Google — which owns YouTube — are wary of the bills even though they are intended to target foreign sites that share illegally uploaded content, such as The Pirate Bay.

The Silicon Valley tech firms led by Wikipedia are opposed to the bills because they feel they would be forced to censor their users. Major entertainment production companies are largely in favor of the bills, which would limit the online proliferation of pirated copies of their shows.

“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring out new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” according to a press release issued by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia.

On Monday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the popular free online encyclopedia’s English version would shut down to show its objection to SOPA and PIPA.

A message that reads, “In less than 10 hours, the English Wikipedia will be blacked out globally to protest SOPA and PIPA,” appeared on the website yesterday, warning its users.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, also discussed the company’s actions in the press release, explaining his intentions.

“This is an extraordinary action of our community to take, and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world,” Wales said in the press release.

Despite the company’s efforts, some users were unaware of the blackout yesterday, including Peregrine Chock, a senior human development and psychology major, who said he uses Wikipedia like a “fiend” — he even has a stylized Wikipedia application on his iPad.

Although Chock said he would unfortunately have to use Google for information sourcing today, he is all for the blackout.

“I am proud of Wikipedia for taking a stand because I think if it shuts down, people are going to realize, across the country, just how much they rely on it as an information website,” he said.

Adam Wilson, a 2009 Virginia Tech alumnus who is now a CRU, or Campus Crusade for Christ, campus ambassador, also did not know about the blackout.

While Wikipedia isn’t as important to Wilson as it is to Chock, he still uses the site a few times a week and approves of the blackout.

“I am definitely not for any kind of government body censoring information,” he said. “It seems like it would be infringing on freedom of speech and information.”

Reddit, a website with user-generated news links, and Boing Boing, which features online headlines and links to blog posts, videos and articles, are also partaking in the blackout.

And websites aren’t the only outlets disapproving of the legislation. Two petitions titled “VETO the SOPA bill and other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information” and “Stop the E-PARASITE Act” were posted on the petition response page on WhiteHouse.gov. 

In reply, an official White House response titled “Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet” explained what the Administration will and will not support.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” the response said.

A version of this article appeared in the Jan 18 issue of the Collegiate Times.