For the first time ever, Wikipedia site has announced its decision to hold a blackout against the proposed legislation in the United States – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). This blackout (protest) was held on 18th January 2012 for 24 hours, world-wide.
It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia that if both of these bills are passed, it will prove to be devastating to free internet and open web. There are majority of overwhelming participants of Wikipedia community who have supported the protest to encourage public action in response to these two bills.
Nearly 55% of these participants preferred the blackout to be global and this support for such actions from Wikipedians is not just from within the United States, but from all around the world. These Wikipedians stated that for the most part their projects consist of organizing, summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge, and putting them into a context to show people on how to make sense out of it.
They believed that, every person around the world should have access to educational material on wide range of subjects, even if they cannot pay for it. All around the world there are many internet community sites which are intending to fight against online privacy that hurts online freedom, saying that they just want internet to remain free and open, everywhere and anywhere.