Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says the online encyclopedia will black out its website Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress.
Wales announced the move on Monday. The popular online community-sourced information site will shut down its English versions for 24 hours in protest of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act pending in Congress.
On his Twitter account Wales wrote:
"Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa".
The legislation is designed to crack down on sales of pirated US products overseas. Critics say it could hurt the technology industry and infringes on free-speech rights.
Wikipedia is not the first website to announce plans to shut down but is the most well-known, with an estimated 25 million visitors a day. Reddit, Boing Boing and other online sites also have plans to go dark.
However, the Wikipedia gambit comes as some other tech leaders see the potential damage caused by SOPA as receding.
Over the weekend Barack Obama came down on the side of the tech community and it now appears that the SOPA bill will need to be amended before it will pass.
Twitter CEO Dick Costello tweeted about the Wikipedia plans and described them as "foolish" and "silly".
Radar correspondent Alex Howard used Twitter to ask Costolo, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerburg whether they would follow Wikipedia's lead.
Costolo replied: "That's just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish."
AP