Wikipedia may join SOPA protests

Derrick Cramer

Derrick joined MyBroadband in 2011 as a junior journalist with a strong background in computer hardware and gaming - he lives for that new motherboard...

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Following earlier announcements by Reddit, who will shut down their website for 12 hours in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, Wikipedia is mulling the idea of similar action.

A statement by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales reads, “I’m all in favour of it [going down in protest against SOPA], and I think it would be great if we could act quickly to coordinate with Reddit. I’d like to talk to our government affairs advisor to see if they agree on this as useful timing, but assuming that’s a green light, I think that matching what Reddit does (but in our own way of course) per the emerging consensus on how to do it, is a good idea. But that means we need to move forward quickly on a concrete proposal and vote – we don’t have the luxury of time that we usually have, in terms of negotiating with each other for weeks about what’s exactly the best possible thing to do.”

While some members of the Wikipedia community are in favour of a full blackout of all language sites in all countries, others are suggesting a more measured approach that will involve taking down English language Wikipedia pages in the U.S. according to Jay Walsh, head of communications for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Read the full story at: Cnet.

Tags: Jay Walsh, Jimmy Wales, Reddit, SOPA, WikiPedia