32 Replies to “An Online Protest Against Oppression”
SOPA and NDAA creating the framework of facism…
Freedom is never taken away. It’s nibbled away…
Wikipedia isn’t really dark. If you stop the page load before it changes over you will get the regular Wikipedia.
Use google cached results to get the wiki data you need today…
The suck up to Obama music and movie industry are the main proponents of this slippery slope move to censor the Internet. It is possibly the most important issue at hand today. …. yet some of the fools of the left put their naivete on display right away. “Indeed, some of Wikipedia’s editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.
This implies that we should fight a war with a letter writing campaign? More stupidity from Wiko-Leftia
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/18/wikipedia-goes-dark-for-24-hours-to-protest-us-web-piracy-bills/#ixzz1jpdy3Ejn“ “Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” Costollo (CEO of Twitter) tweeted.
This man is obviously stupid. This is the prime issue that is always on the forefront of the cause for freedom. it is possibly the only issue that demands 100% support from anyone who believes in freedom of speech. What a fool.
Wikipedia will be neutral, except when It’s not…….
Um, yeah, ok Jimmy. Who ever said Wikipedia was neutral in the first place?
Even the left vanguard is aware that government and MSM have been scheming ways to limit internet freedom or control/filter its information.They have this in common with the Chinese communist regime. SOPA is an excuse to remove a thorn in the side of imperial Washington and throw some revenues to their greedhead Hollywood propagandists.
I’ve never had much to say about Wikipedia’s distinct left wing editing but at least they know a threat from dictatorial censoship when they see it. Bravo for putting free speech ahead of left wing dogma Wiki people.
Maybe it’s just the “post-traumatic stress” talking, but it reminds me of when the communist FSLN censored all the mass media in the ’80’s.
In protest, newspapers such as “La Prensa”, instead of publishing the sanitized government censored version they would publish entire sections in solid black ink where the original articles would have appeared before censorship.
It had a tremendous dramatic effect even beyond local readership — you could pick up a copy of Nicaragua’s “La Prensa” wherever you happened to be travelling in Latin America and the blacked out pages spoke volumes more than the actual articles that were published. Everyone knew that the latter were pure government propaganda anyway and didn’t give the slightest credibility to them. Contrariwise, tremendous credibility was given to the unwritten message conveyed by the blacked out articles.
The black-out was purely symbolic, but it ended up feeding a widespread popular rebellion against the regime.
That article is a sure off base as others have noted. “My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that’s a slippery slope,” said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. “Before we know it, we’re blacked out because we want to save the whales.”
As everyone knows Wiki censors information in favor of its advocacy toward supporting the mantra of man-made global warming.
Wiki is fine for looking up the “principle exports of Peru” or the latest population of Toronto. But is an unconscionable eco-weenie site that only allows information supporting its left enviro views.
Clive at January 18, 2012 1:28 PM:
“As everyone knows Wiki censors information in favor of its advocacy toward supporting the mantra of man-made global warming.”
Just an aside in reference to my previous post, “La Prensa” also was once an advocate for the FSLN, but it later discovered that the FSLN were fascist communists. Hence, the traditional Left, together with the Right, joined together to fight the commie censorship. It’s not a unique phenomenon — both sides have always had a vested political interest in fighting for free speech when commie or fascist dictators take over. Ironically, the first people who were jailed by the communist FSLN were members of the Nicaraguan National Communist party, simply because the latter had a different dogmatic approach — the regime needed to completely eliminate the competition within its own ranks first, in order to establish its dictatorship…
I think the wiki/reddit blackout is great no matter what I think of their politics. SOPA/PIPA and the resistance to it has been going on for many weeks now and just now is it getting any big attention from many non-tech news sites.
I also have to remind you guys that you shouldn’t think that FOX is your friend in anti-SOPA opposition. Rupert Murdoch has come out in favor of these acts.
“Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.” Is an example of the editorializing that we conservatives have complained about in other new organizations. Nevermind that a non-profit voluntarily shutting down for a day in protest is hardly analogous to having the government ordering companies to selectively block websites indefinitely at the behest of the MPAA/RIAA.
If anyone is serious in their opposition to this you should also not forget that SOPA has a Senate counterpart in PIPA which is just as bad.
https://twitter.com/herpderpedia
funny link to twitter posts regarding wikipedia blackout… makes me wonder about some people’s inability to research or read themselves.
this one was getting close though…(*s are mine)
lushi_dia this new internet ban bullsh*t is going to shut down wikipedia and craigslist WTF??!!!! F**K YOU OBAMA!!!!!!!
forget wiki and twitter. The real threat is to any conservative site during an election.
Watch the left use sopa to silence dissent through the US election in November.
A lot of sites will go dark and will remain there until the media and hollywood re-elect Obama.
steven burton at January 18, 2012 2:00 PM,
The “https://twitter.com/herpderpedia” link is hilarious! All these spoiled brat Internet-addicted students who have never done any real library research outside of Wikipedia.
Back in the day, we had to do our own library research — actually had to read dozens of books and articles and analyze them ourselves — in order to submit papers for the degree. We didn’t have “Coles Notes” versions like Wikipedia at our fingertips. (In fact any professor worth his/her salt would seriously frown on students even using Cole’s Notes instead of one’s own brain).
steven burton
Thanks! Oh gosh those Twitter comments are hilarious. They are like a bunch of crack addicts in need of a hit.
Poor poor widdle babies can’t plagiarize their homework. Awwwwww….. ☺
Perspective … my wife typed my 185-page master’s thesis on a portable Smith Corona typewriter. Like you said we actually had to look up and read stuff. ☺
I am nowhere near getting DTs because WUWT of off the air today. Two days and I’d be in trouble. ☺
I just went to the Blogging Tories website. They have blacked themselves out for the day.
I am in two minds re SOPA. I don’t like this bill, I think US should scrap it. On the other hand I don’t like some of the hacking going on.
And I definitely do not like Wikipedia protest. They are becoming more “activist” , less “[encyclo]pedia”, and getting more unreliable.
“Wiki is fine for looking up the “principle exports of Peru” or the latest population of Toronto.”
Well, yes. But but it is easy to get access to so people get numbers and explanations from Wiki.
If you want to get in-depth information you have to spend time and/or money and many people do not have one or the other or both.
@ella
SOPA has nothing to do with hacking. It has everything to do with ‘piracy’ and I use that term in quotes and vaguely. At best it creates a place where the old media guard gets to be the new media guard, and has the ability to arbitrarily kill new media before anyone can do anything. One again created their own special walled garden.
Think of it like this. SDA posts something that the old guard disagrees with, and they file a complaint and SDA is now blocked. That’s it. No more SDA.
Besides, there’s plenty of laws on the books that deal with hacking as it is. There’s plenty of laws on the books that deal with piracy too. If I rattled them off this post would get too long.
Get Tor. They can’t block every country.
I say bravo to Wikipedia no matter how left they are. In this case they are doing something solid for free speech & a free INTERNET.
After “the Obama” signing of search & censure of Americans without warrants, this than is an obvious attempt to censor the Web. They already spend copious amounts by government departments monitoring us.
One has to wonder if America has any freedoms left? The Constitution has become just a piece of paper to both Democrats & Republicans. This bill was supported by both.
It gets more oppressive by the month in Obamaland.
These bills are just using the entertainment industry as a shield for the true purpose of making the Net under the whip of the MSM & its auxiliaries.
I remember under the Liberals the same BS was used to force huge taxes on books not by Canadians, with even tape taxes for music or any equipment. All to control content. We now have a 40% Canadian content , meaning almost all socialism all the time.
This is the clay mixed with iron fist of totalitarianism disguised under property rights the left itself despises.
This is an out right try at a takeover of information flow.
Here’s the thing: I’m willing to bet $100.00 that if you were to poll all the editors and contributors of Wikipedia you would find they are *overwhelmingly* left leaning Obama supporters. They are just a different flavour of leftist than those that inhabit Hollywood.
The Wikipedia leftists are more of the scrappy kind, with greasy hair, and somewhat anarchist tendencies. The Hollywood leftists are wealthy do-as-I-say, and not-as-I-do types, with huge egos, and hypocrisy etched deep into their DNA.
Google itself is crawling with leftists, so it’s rather funny to see them opposing a bill like this, when said bill is supported by their friends in Hollywood, and their beloved Democratic Party.
So whatever your view on the SOPA and NDAA bills (I think they are both evil and are another example of America in decline), the leftists that are against these bills are hypocrites, as are those that are for them.
Sorry, should have said “SOPA and PIPA bills” in my previous post.
In the midst of an unappreciated protest against U.S. anti-piracy legislation that has seen Wikipedia shut itself down for 24 hours, six prominent supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it’s Senate companion Protect IP Act (PIPA), have removed their backing for the bills.
Six key lawmakers remove support for SOPA/PIPA in light of Wikipedia blackout. http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/18/two-sopa-co-sponsors-remove-support-for-the-legislation/
Where’s KevinB? I had a bit of a dust-up with him a while back when I ranted about the nefarious plans of the Feds vis-a-vis “net neutrality”.
Anti-Piracy? It is to laugh. What idiots they think we are.
About as funny as government privacy laws, which are a hoot.
One more thing (after a few days reflection): that TED lecture — about the differential individually-targeted search results. There’s another non-problem that gubment could get their teeth into. Yunno, a new angle on the Fairness Doctrine. That single word search — EGYPT — is dumb, which makes the lecture dumb.
This is odd. I’m against SOPA/PIPA, but expected them because they are the next logical step past the DMCA. DMCA was passed to prove that no one company could afford to defend its copyrights on the Internet without giving absolute draconian power to the copyright holders. So, DMCA was always crafted to fail.
Now, the Internet content providers weren’t able to buy off more of the 535 than the RIAA/MPAA (Hey were did Chris Dodd (D-CT) end up anyway?), so they’re playing the uber-fear game; the typical play (Want to cut Social Security, Drum up the Fear in the Gimmie-Gimme Generation, Welfare? Push the Fear Button with the poor and minorites).
This is so typical. Remember speaking truth to power? Except, when that Power plays nice, doesn’t jail you or kill you for your beliefs, just how “courageous” is it?
Why doesn’t Google’s China portal have a black line over it EVERY DAY IT EXISTS? Why doesn’t their Indian portal DO THE EXACT SAME? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Indonesia? And the beat goes on…
Just like the Athiests that only persecute Christians, the Large Internet companies are crappy trolls, playing it safe, comfy, and weak.
For everyone against the bill but questioning Wiki et alibi should really think about that.
Sometimes you don’t have a George Washinton fighting with you, but at least they’re fighting for liberty.
“Why doesn’t Google’s China portal have a black line over it EVERY DAY IT EXISTS? Why doesn’t their Indian portal DO THE EXACT SAME? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Indonesia? And the beat goes on…”
Hear hear! Excellent point.
Now that must have put a million or so University papers on hold. The select/cut/paste crowd must have their thongs in a knot.
Why, even our own SDA wikidicks seem a bit restrained today.
I support the Stop Online Piracy Act.
It won’t censor or fundamentally change the internet. It won’t kill free speech. The bill is designed to extend infringement legislation passed by Congress in the 1940’s into the modern digital age.
The Attorney General can only ask for websites to be blocked after a court order. The provisions affect offending websites who can’t be contacted. The blocking of websites is a last resort and the owners get plenty of notice.
The litigation gets launched by corporations or people affected and damaged by theft of intellectual property. Not the US government.
Wikipedia Itself is a multi billion dollar corporation who exploits free labour the majority of leftist hipsters who build and package its product. Jimmy Wales lines his pockets with their “donations”. WMF has spread misinformation about SOPA as a way to make its leftist writer base feel endeared to its multi billion dollar master
SOPA and NDAA creating the framework of facism…
Freedom is never taken away. It’s nibbled away…
Wikipedia isn’t really dark. If you stop the page load before it changes over you will get the regular Wikipedia.
Use google cached results to get the wiki data you need today…
The suck up to Obama music and movie industry are the main proponents of this slippery slope move to censor the Internet. It is possibly the most important issue at hand today. …. yet some of the fools of the left put their naivete on display right away.
“Indeed, some of Wikipedia’s editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.
This implies that we should fight a war with a letter writing campaign? More stupidity from Wiko-Leftia
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/18/wikipedia-goes-dark-for-24-hours-to-protest-us-web-piracy-bills/#ixzz1jpdy3Ejn“
“Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” Costollo (CEO of Twitter) tweeted.
This man is obviously stupid. This is the prime issue that is always on the forefront of the cause for freedom. it is possibly the only issue that demands 100% support from anyone who believes in freedom of speech. What a fool.
Wikipedia will be neutral, except when It’s not…….
Um, yeah, ok Jimmy. Who ever said Wikipedia was neutral in the first place?
Even the left vanguard is aware that government and MSM have been scheming ways to limit internet freedom or control/filter its information.They have this in common with the Chinese communist regime. SOPA is an excuse to remove a thorn in the side of imperial Washington and throw some revenues to their greedhead Hollywood propagandists.
I’ve never had much to say about Wikipedia’s distinct left wing editing but at least they know a threat from dictatorial censoship when they see it. Bravo for putting free speech ahead of left wing dogma Wiki people.
Maybe it’s just the “post-traumatic stress” talking, but it reminds me of when the communist FSLN censored all the mass media in the ’80’s.
In protest, newspapers such as “La Prensa”, instead of publishing the sanitized government censored version they would publish entire sections in solid black ink where the original articles would have appeared before censorship.
It had a tremendous dramatic effect even beyond local readership — you could pick up a copy of Nicaragua’s “La Prensa” wherever you happened to be travelling in Latin America and the blacked out pages spoke volumes more than the actual articles that were published. Everyone knew that the latter were pure government propaganda anyway and didn’t give the slightest credibility to them. Contrariwise, tremendous credibility was given to the unwritten message conveyed by the blacked out articles.
The black-out was purely symbolic, but it ended up feeding a widespread popular rebellion against the regime.
That article is a sure off base as others have noted.
“My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that’s a slippery slope,” said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. “Before we know it, we’re blacked out because we want to save the whales.”
As everyone knows Wiki censors information in favor of its advocacy toward supporting the mantra of man-made global warming.
Wiki is fine for looking up the “principle exports of Peru” or the latest population of Toronto. But is an unconscionable eco-weenie site that only allows information supporting its left enviro views.
Clive at January 18, 2012 1:28 PM:
“As everyone knows Wiki censors information in favor of its advocacy toward supporting the mantra of man-made global warming.”
Just an aside in reference to my previous post, “La Prensa” also was once an advocate for the FSLN, but it later discovered that the FSLN were fascist communists. Hence, the traditional Left, together with the Right, joined together to fight the commie censorship. It’s not a unique phenomenon — both sides have always had a vested political interest in fighting for free speech when commie or fascist dictators take over. Ironically, the first people who were jailed by the communist FSLN were members of the Nicaraguan National Communist party, simply because the latter had a different dogmatic approach — the regime needed to completely eliminate the competition within its own ranks first, in order to establish its dictatorship…
I think the wiki/reddit blackout is great no matter what I think of their politics. SOPA/PIPA and the resistance to it has been going on for many weeks now and just now is it getting any big attention from many non-tech news sites.
I also have to remind you guys that you shouldn’t think that FOX is your friend in anti-SOPA opposition. Rupert Murdoch has come out in favor of these acts.
“Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.” Is an example of the editorializing that we conservatives have complained about in other new organizations. Nevermind that a non-profit voluntarily shutting down for a day in protest is hardly analogous to having the government ordering companies to selectively block websites indefinitely at the behest of the MPAA/RIAA.
If anyone is serious in their opposition to this you should also not forget that SOPA has a Senate counterpart in PIPA which is just as bad.
https://twitter.com/herpderpedia
funny link to twitter posts regarding wikipedia blackout… makes me wonder about some people’s inability to research or read themselves.
this one was getting close though…(*s are mine)
lushi_dia this new internet ban bullsh*t is going to shut down wikipedia and craigslist WTF??!!!! F**K YOU OBAMA!!!!!!!
forget wiki and twitter. The real threat is to any conservative site during an election.
Watch the left use sopa to silence dissent through the US election in November.
A lot of sites will go dark and will remain there until the media and hollywood re-elect Obama.
steven burton at January 18, 2012 2:00 PM,
The “https://twitter.com/herpderpedia” link is hilarious! All these spoiled brat Internet-addicted students who have never done any real library research outside of Wikipedia.
Back in the day, we had to do our own library research — actually had to read dozens of books and articles and analyze them ourselves — in order to submit papers for the degree. We didn’t have “Coles Notes” versions like Wikipedia at our fingertips. (In fact any professor worth his/her salt would seriously frown on students even using Cole’s Notes instead of one’s own brain).
steven burton
Thanks! Oh gosh those Twitter comments are hilarious. They are like a bunch of crack addicts in need of a hit.
Poor poor widdle babies can’t plagiarize their homework. Awwwwww….. ☺
Perspective … my wife typed my 185-page master’s thesis on a portable Smith Corona typewriter. Like you said we actually had to look up and read stuff. ☺
I am nowhere near getting DTs because WUWT of off the air today. Two days and I’d be in trouble. ☺
I just went to the Blogging Tories website. They have blacked themselves out for the day.
I am in two minds re SOPA. I don’t like this bill, I think US should scrap it. On the other hand I don’t like some of the hacking going on.
And I definitely do not like Wikipedia protest. They are becoming more “activist” , less “[encyclo]pedia”, and getting more unreliable.
“Wiki is fine for looking up the “principle exports of Peru” or the latest population of Toronto.”
Well, yes. But but it is easy to get access to so people get numbers and explanations from Wiki.
If you want to get in-depth information you have to spend time and/or money and many people do not have one or the other or both.
@ella
SOPA has nothing to do with hacking. It has everything to do with ‘piracy’ and I use that term in quotes and vaguely. At best it creates a place where the old media guard gets to be the new media guard, and has the ability to arbitrarily kill new media before anyone can do anything. One again created their own special walled garden.
Think of it like this. SDA posts something that the old guard disagrees with, and they file a complaint and SDA is now blocked. That’s it. No more SDA.
Besides, there’s plenty of laws on the books that deal with hacking as it is. There’s plenty of laws on the books that deal with piracy too. If I rattled them off this post would get too long.
Get Tor. They can’t block every country.
I say bravo to Wikipedia no matter how left they are. In this case they are doing something solid for free speech & a free INTERNET.
After “the Obama” signing of search & censure of Americans without warrants, this than is an obvious attempt to censor the Web. They already spend copious amounts by government departments monitoring us.
One has to wonder if America has any freedoms left? The Constitution has become just a piece of paper to both Democrats & Republicans. This bill was supported by both.
It gets more oppressive by the month in Obamaland.
These bills are just using the entertainment industry as a shield for the true purpose of making the Net under the whip of the MSM & its auxiliaries.
I remember under the Liberals the same BS was used to force huge taxes on books not by Canadians, with even tape taxes for music or any equipment. All to control content. We now have a 40% Canadian content , meaning almost all socialism all the time.
This is the clay mixed with iron fist of totalitarianism disguised under property rights the left itself despises.
This is an out right try at a takeover of information flow.
Here’s the thing: I’m willing to bet $100.00 that if you were to poll all the editors and contributors of Wikipedia you would find they are *overwhelmingly* left leaning Obama supporters. They are just a different flavour of leftist than those that inhabit Hollywood.
The Wikipedia leftists are more of the scrappy kind, with greasy hair, and somewhat anarchist tendencies. The Hollywood leftists are wealthy do-as-I-say, and not-as-I-do types, with huge egos, and hypocrisy etched deep into their DNA.
Google itself is crawling with leftists, so it’s rather funny to see them opposing a bill like this, when said bill is supported by their friends in Hollywood, and their beloved Democratic Party.
So whatever your view on the SOPA and NDAA bills (I think they are both evil and are another example of America in decline), the leftists that are against these bills are hypocrites, as are those that are for them.
Sorry, should have said “SOPA and PIPA bills” in my previous post.
In the midst of an unappreciated protest against U.S. anti-piracy legislation that has seen Wikipedia shut itself down for 24 hours, six prominent supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it’s Senate companion Protect IP Act (PIPA), have removed their backing for the bills.
Six key lawmakers remove support for SOPA/PIPA in light of Wikipedia blackout.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/18/two-sopa-co-sponsors-remove-support-for-the-legislation/
Six key lawmakers remove support for SOPA/PIPA in light of Wikipedia blackout.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/18/two-sopa-co-sponsors-remove-support-for-the-legislation/
Where’s KevinB? I had a bit of a dust-up with him a while back when I ranted about the nefarious plans of the Feds vis-a-vis “net neutrality”.
Anti-Piracy? It is to laugh. What idiots they think we are.
About as funny as government privacy laws, which are a hoot.
One more thing (after a few days reflection): that TED lecture — about the differential individually-targeted search results. There’s another non-problem that gubment could get their teeth into. Yunno, a new angle on the Fairness Doctrine. That single word search — EGYPT — is dumb, which makes the lecture dumb.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/
Ha!
check Iowahawks tweets on this!
This is odd. I’m against SOPA/PIPA, but expected them because they are the next logical step past the DMCA. DMCA was passed to prove that no one company could afford to defend its copyrights on the Internet without giving absolute draconian power to the copyright holders. So, DMCA was always crafted to fail.
Now, the Internet content providers weren’t able to buy off more of the 535 than the RIAA/MPAA (Hey were did Chris Dodd (D-CT) end up anyway?), so they’re playing the uber-fear game; the typical play (Want to cut Social Security, Drum up the Fear in the Gimmie-Gimme Generation, Welfare? Push the Fear Button with the poor and minorites).
This is so typical. Remember speaking truth to power? Except, when that Power plays nice, doesn’t jail you or kill you for your beliefs, just how “courageous” is it?
Why doesn’t Google’s China portal have a black line over it EVERY DAY IT EXISTS? Why doesn’t their Indian portal DO THE EXACT SAME? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Indonesia? And the beat goes on…
Just like the Athiests that only persecute Christians, the Large Internet companies are crappy trolls, playing it safe, comfy, and weak.
For everyone against the bill but questioning Wiki et alibi should really think about that.
Sometimes you don’t have a George Washinton fighting with you, but at least they’re fighting for liberty.
“Why doesn’t Google’s China portal have a black line over it EVERY DAY IT EXISTS? Why doesn’t their Indian portal DO THE EXACT SAME? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Indonesia? And the beat goes on…”
Hear hear! Excellent point.
Now that must have put a million or so University papers on hold. The select/cut/paste crowd must have their thongs in a knot.
Why, even our own SDA wikidicks seem a bit restrained today.
I support the Stop Online Piracy Act.
It won’t censor or fundamentally change the internet. It won’t kill free speech. The bill is designed to extend infringement legislation passed by Congress in the 1940’s into the modern digital age.
The Attorney General can only ask for websites to be blocked after a court order. The provisions affect offending websites who can’t be contacted. The blocking of websites is a last resort and the owners get plenty of notice.
The litigation gets launched by corporations or people affected and damaged by theft of intellectual property. Not the US government.
Wikipedia Itself is a multi billion dollar corporation who exploits free labour the majority of leftist hipsters who build and package its product. Jimmy Wales lines his pockets with their “donations”. WMF has spread misinformation about SOPA as a way to make its leftist writer base feel endeared to its multi billion dollar master