Wikipedia and other big internet sites have gone black to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) which are federal antipiracy bills.
Owners of these websites feel that these bills would censor the web.
The bills are meant to stop foreign countries from pirating films, music, and counterfeit goods. However many other websites would be affected by these bills as well some of which are not foreign.
Other websites going black included Reddit, Boing Boing, and Craigslist.
Many of the websites who are protesting SOPA and PIPA offer information about these bills to their visitors and even offer ways to get in contact with their Senate representatives, so they can protest these bills too.
Google also protested these bills, but did not go black. Instead they covered their logo on their home page with a black box.
The search engine users can click on the black box covering the logo to get information and even sign an online petition to protest SOPA and PIPA.
The only information users had to provide to sign the petition was their first and last name, email address, and zip code. After completing these tasks the user would be given the opportunity to share the online petition with their “friends” on their social networks such as Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter.
An e-mail was sent out to those who participated in the petition at 10p.m. to inform them that the fight is not over.
The Senate will vote on Monday Jan. 23 to either pass or deny SOPA AND PIPA.
The e-mail encouraged all participants to call their Senator every day until Monday as well as dropping by there senators’ district offices.
