By Obinna Odenigbo
The english version of the world’s most popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is currently observing a blackout today; which will last for 24 hours to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in the United States Congress. The blackout which started 6.00 am today (Nigerian time) is unprecedented and seeks to decry the SOPA and PIPA legislations which could be passed into law in the US.
These bills, if passed into law, will definitely cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. This is because they put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. User-friendly websites like Wikipedia which thrives on user-contributions and submissions from the public, will understandably suffer a great deal.
Small sites too are not spared as they won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Other downsides of this legislation could see big media companies cutting off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. And, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in a statement: “Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation. This is an extraordinary action for 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.”
Cruise Nigeria has however learnt that the English Wikipedia will be accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by completely disabling JavaScript in your computer browser.
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