Wikipedia Blackout

[Psylo]

http://wikimediafoun...i-SOPA_blackout

To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community

From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director

Date: January 16, 2012

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate—that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.

This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst: It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web. Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support. On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.

In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.

But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently, We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it. But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.

The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.

Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.

That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place—many do!—but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA—and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States—don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?

The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

 

 

 

 

On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.

Sue Gardner,

Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

[Distracted]

Good shit, I hope more sites follow through and do the same.

[chnt]

i read this earlier today on wiki, hopefully it helps get the message across to more people.

[Distracted]

I see this as much less a message to the people but a message to the government.

We have control of the information and we can stop it's flow at any time, you can't.

[rogdog]

I sure hope the war on information is as successful as the war on terror and the war on drugs. Damn pirates gonna get blown out of the water any century now

[faustus]

lawlz. it's fascinating how unconsciously i've turned wiki into my primary online information reference. so far today i found myself referring to wiki like 15x... only to keep getting the blackout screen. it's an interesting process to catch your mind on autopilot, when it's failed to adjust to a change in your unconscious, everyday habits.

BTW l33t little trick i worked out: if you're doing a google search, and a good wiki article appears that you want to read, you can just click the >> arrow to the right of the listing, then click the cached option to open up the un-blacked full length article that google has cached

[chnt]

you can also load the page and stop before the black screen has loaded.

[amanito]

They should repeat this action and other big sites like google, facebook, myspace should follow, although they arent too gentle with your privacy either

[Jonstn]

Did anyone notice erowid went in on the blackout as well?

Edited January 19, 2012 by Jonstn

[Francois le Danque]

you can also load the page and stop before the black screen has loaded.

 

fucking this guy right here^ has it down

[Francois le Danque]

Did anyone notice erowid went in on the blackout as well?

 

no i didn't! shit. this is a big deal. like the US government could effectively fuck up the internet for everyone like overnight. COOL STORY BROS. not.

as for wikipedia holding all the power, i love that story of wikileaks having some incriminating document, and the USDoD was like "give us back our incriminating document" and wikileaks was like "um...do you know how the internet works? do you want us to like, mail it to you? INTERNET IS ELECTRONIC THERE ARE NOW THOUSANDS OF COPIES OF THAT FILE AROUND THE WORLD."

fucking idiots in power seriously who lets them in?...

"please send me back my picture of the spider"

[chnt]

fucking this guy right here^ has it down

 

thanks man

[Distracted]

grrr fucignglujsaXVhgfsadjbhp[0icfvkzzvxfduh;o'

'I can't get the photo to not be a fuckign thumbnail, stupid peice of shit fucking coding glitch fucking crap

Edited January 19, 2012 by Distracted

[Psylo]

you can also load the page and stop before the black screen has loaded.

 

fucking this guy right here^ has it down

 

Right on, guys! How did you work it out? I sometime use the Esc key to 'kill' site from a continued loading (where I only want the text content, not the bullshit). This worked for me during the Wikipedia blackout.

So really, not a blackout....... damn their token statements. And damn Jimmy Wales for suggesting that kids do their homework before the shut-down.

[Jonstn]

My partner was using wiki on her phone 3 hours after the blackout started? We just assumed they pulled out but guess not haha

[qualia]

ill post this here as it's still kind of relevant. i think the lesson to be learned here is not to do business with anyone in the US. good, i hope they crumble with their cuntishness.

Popular file-sharing website Megaupload shut down

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press – 7 minutes ago

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — One of the world's most popular file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company officials were accused of facilitating millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content.

A federal indictment accused Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.

The news of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department's website. Federal officials confirmed it was down Thursday evening and that the disruption was being "treated as a malicious act."

A loose affiliation of hackers known as "Anonymous" claimed credit for the attack. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America and perhaps others.

Megaupload is based in Hong Kong, but some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va., which gave federal authorities jurisdiction, the indictment said.

The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, 37, and three other employees were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Three other defendants are at large.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, "This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?"

Before Megaupload was taken down, it posted a statement saying allegations that it facilitated massive breaches of copyright laws were "grotesquely overblown."

"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the DOJ said its web server for justice.gov was "experiencing a significant increase in activity, resulting in a degradation in service." It was working to fix it and "investigate the origins of this activity, which is being treated as a malicious act until we can fully identify the root cause of the disruption," the agency's statement said.

A spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America said in an emailed statement that the group's site had been hacked, although it appeared to be working later in the evening.

"The motion picture and television industry has always been a strong supporter of free speech," the spokesman said. "We strongly condemn any attempts to silence any groups or individuals."

Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size and the volume of downloaded content, but also because it had high-profile support from celebrities, musicians and other content producers who are most often the victims of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the website was taken down, it contained endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.

The company listed Swizz Beatz, a musician who married Keys in 2010, as its CEO. He was not named in the indictment and declined to comment through a representative.

According to the indictment, Megaupload was estimated at one point to be the 13th most frequently visited website on the Internet. Current estimates by companies that monitor Web traffic place it in the top 100.

The five-count indictment, which alleges copyright infringement as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering and racketeering, described a site designed specifically to reward users who uploaded pirated content for sharing, and turned a blind eye to requests from copyright holders to remove copyright-protected files.

For instance, users received cash bonuses if they uploaded content popular enough to generate massive numbers of downloads, according to the indictment. Such content was almost always copyright protected.

The site boasted 150 million registered users and about 50 million hits daily. The Justice Department said it was illegal for anyone to download pirated content, but their investigation focused on the leaders of the company, not end users who may have downloaded a few movies for personal viewing.

A lawyer who represented the company in a lawsuit last year declined comment Thursday. Efforts to reach an attorney representing Dotcom were unsuccessful.

Megaupload is considered a "cyberlocker," in which users can upload and transfer files that are too large to send by email. Such sites can have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America, which has campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated that the vast majority of content being shared on Megaupload was in violation of copyright laws.

The website allowed users to download some content for free, but made money by charging subscriptions to people who wanted access to faster download speeds or extra content. The website also sold advertising.

The indictment was returned in the Eastern District of Virginia, which claimed jurisdiction in part because some of the alleged pirated materials were hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va. Prosecutors there have pursued multiple piracy investigations.

Steven T. Shelton, a copyright lawyer at the Cozen O'Connor firm in New York, said opponents of the legislation are worried the proposals lessen the burden for the government to target a wide variety of websites. Shelton said he expects to see the government engage in more enforcement in the future, as technology makes it easier to catch and target suspected pirates.

"I think we'll be seeing more of this," he said. "This is just the beginning."

Dotcom, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, made more than $42 million from the site in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.

Dotcom had his name legally changed. He was previously known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor. He is founder, former CEO and current chief innovation officer of Megaupload.

Officials estimated it could be a year or more before Dotcom and the others arrested in New Zealand are formally extradited.

The others arrested were Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, the company's chief marketing officer; Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, who is the chief technical officer, co-founder and director; and Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, who oversees programming.

Still at large are Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, the site's graphic designer; Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, head of business development; and Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, head of the development software division.

Several sister sites were also shut down, including one dedicated to sharing pornography files.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0HiB0PrdprLqIHlwUdYtB05l2sA?docId=c93737704b504930a11fc307d67b674d

[Jonstn]

^^ just read that about 20 mins ago, it's bullshit all the shit they've copped since all the celebs did that megaupload song

[Jonstn]

Just read this on news.com.au

The indictment charges the suspects with racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

If convicted, each individual faces up to 55 years in prison, the Justice Department said.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/fbi-shuts-down-megauploadcom-charges-seven-with-online-piracy/story-e6frfro0-1226249114650#ixzz1jxpi2Qkd

55 years is fucked up!

Edited January 20, 2012 by Jonstn

[qualia]

yeh, it's been widely regarded as completely overblown. i seriously hope they can fight and win. all their assets have been seized so i'm not sure how they can pay for a protracted legal battle. at any rate the whole internet should be behind them. i think the term is, game on.

[chnt]

Just read this on news.com.au

55 years is fucked up!

 

compared to a 12 month sentence for that child molesting, child molester inspector for the catholic church...

life blows my mind.

child molesting > piracy

yes.

[rogdog]

nevermind, qualias article said what I was saying

Edited January 20, 2012 by rogdog

[Mycot]

In response to the Megaupload shutdown the hacktivist group Anonymous has launched many successful cyberattacks in a World Cyberwar against numerous government and media websites. Sites affected include US Dept of Justice, US Copyright Office, FBI, motion picture and music industry sites, French government sites, Brazilian websites and New Zealand government and police sites. The group is promising more to come.

http://digitalgroup....archives/168582

Edited January 22, 2012 by Mycot

[santiago]

isnt it just a ploy for money, firstly jimmy sets up the free encyclopaedia, then he sets about a personal appeal, since that personal appeal backfired he has been a laughing stock and ridiculed by the faceless twitter brigade to the late night talk show hosts, the he gets the writers of good wiki's to lodge more personal appeals because he knows he blew his shot. so if he cant finance it anymore and the public wont finance it anymore and the site aint making enough money to be the viable business option he had hoped for then his last chance is to blackmail, so wikipedia is obviously trying to blackmail the public to some degree or confuse the public by creating some government conspiricy, he is hoping to lobby important people to influence government money for tax payer handouts. at the end of the day his free idea has failed, nobody will pay for it and now he is desperate.

there are other ways to get information, the world wont suddenly stop if wiki dies. its an opportunity for some net savvy individual to repace wiki, surely an advertising giant like google or the stuggling yahoo can either give jimmy wales the desperation money he requires by buying it out and taking it over, or maybe sometimes in life there is a good reason why people and ideas fail and the world will just continue ticking along just fine as it always has.

DONT PANIC - take a deep breath, its ok....life goes on.

Edited January 22, 2012 by santiago

[Sheather]

If SOPA had passed, you could get 5 years for uploading a Michael Jackson song illegally. The guy that killed Michael Jackson only got 4 years.

A couple of interesting facts - Megaupload is a colossal site. It consisted of as much as 4% of the entire internet! There has been an idea going around that every person who had legitimate files on the site should file a claim against the US government. As it was the FBI that shut down the site, they're liable to pay out damages, and a couple hundred thousand claims will give them pause for thought. There's also been a retraction of service to US IP addresses from upload.to or somesuch as well as a result of this.

@Santiago - This was part of a massive coordinated blackout across many sites, from Wikipedia to Reddit, even pornsites were going down, all in protest of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). As a direct result of the blackouts, the massive support SOPA was getting in the US House of Congress pretty much flipped over. It's now been shelved. It has NOTHING to do with profit. I think you should read the original post, and then perhaps google SOPA, before you start spouting nonsense about profit-mongering.

Not to mention that Wikipedia is a NON-PROFIT organisation. They could pull in collossal amounts of revenue just by putting ads up on the site, much like Google does.

[santiago]

yea i did read the thread sheather unfortunately im not so net adept and a bit sick of SOPA and BUPA and DICKA and LICKO and im quickly starting to tire of the whole internet experience as a whole, as a matter of fact i spent the last 3 months off the internet by choice and i cant believe im spending 5 minutes responding to my crap post regarding responding to defending or not defending some cause which has about as much importance as a crap in a toilet.

an entry from my personal biosphere blog today reads..........i did a big poo in the toilet today would you like to comment on that.

really isnt there more to life than worrying about stuff like this, i remember the fervent fever pitch of occupy wall street, if you ask me the people that read to much into this sort of crap really need to shut down their lives for a few years and get back to the core ethno belief that got you here in the first place, then you will realise that the signifigant issues in life such as are reported here on a daily basis have no reality based signifigance at all and may only be the manifestations of mental illness from information overload, personally if the internet caved in and collapsed i couldnt give a rats ass, you are being blindsided by a fake reality, in actual fact the internet is much like the movie the matrix.

when you log on you get a cool name like neo or santiago, you can do what you want within certain parameters, the agents are the government trying to stop you, and the merovingian and the oracle are the freedoms of information and heads of business. the funny thing is that when you log off you simply become mr anderson.

do you take the blue or the red pill. BOPA and KIKA and FANNYFART and all these faceless corporations and occupy wall street and the fucking sea shepheard can go lick my ass because they are FULL OF CRAP and this woe is me attitude of me vs the government is starting to wear a bit thin.

log off and be free, ill say it once and ill say it again. to attain true freedom all you need is an ethno plant, some knowledge, some company from time to time, some family that you respect and serve till they pass on and hopefully you get that respect in return, a hobby, the ability to change and adapt, and from time to time the chance to log onto a fake world on the internet to se how far removed it is from a proper true functional society.

we are no different or better than any generation in the last remnant annals of history, to think we are is our downfall and to believe in facebook or occupy or wikipedia is just sheer nonsense, so what if the government regulates shit there is always another way around, release yourself from the ropes, the ropes are the internet.