that's right. it's upon us. no wikipedia for 24 hours! i hope the nation's college students planned ahead...
anyway, if you haven't heard, the wikipedia blackout is in response to a couple of bills being considered in the legislature: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
the new york times has a short piece explaining it all, and you can always go to the google homepage to see their doodle about internet censorship.
obviously, not for the first time, homies in the legislature just don't get it. as the wiki model shows, the best way to police content on the internet is with self regulation. draconian measures put in place from the top-down by the federal government will only serve to further line the pockets of the wealthy (in this case, media and content distributors). we, the people of the united states, are getting pushed around by big business enough in every other part of life. we certainly don't need more corporate control over the content we choose to consume online.
The Woman in the Middle, a fellow blogger, has an excellent (and much more fair and balanced than my own mutterings) post on the proverbial tightrope congress is walking between preventing online piracy and encouraging the open model that the internet has already proven drives innovation.
take a look at the wikipedia blackout by trying to read one of my favorite wiki articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst
oh, and a little protip: as the wiki page is loading, hit "esc" on your keyboard and you'll be able to view the article. this works on every wikipedia page.
wikipedia isn't the only site that has gone dark today. many bloggers, such as my friend over at The New Direction, are also blacking out their sites for a day. let's see what happens...
wikipedia isn't the only site that has gone dark today. many bloggers, such as my friend over at The New Direction, are also blacking out their sites for a day. let's see what happens...
Workaround Hack: http://en.m.wikipedia.org and then search for an article. Reintroduce the m. into the url:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst becomes http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst. Read on!
something tells me the Wikipedia Gods weren't too committed to actually blocking access to their site
ReplyDeletealso, the "escape" trick works on nytimes.com after you've exhausted their "20 free articles" quota. which i do very quickly.
I think the SOPA and PIPA issues are ones that need to be addressed. As we saw on this blackout date, the current proposal for fixing this issue is not the ideal one. The power of blocking website like Wikipedia and Wordpress is significant and make me think about the issue a little more. It also makes me think - how is this issue going to be fixed? People want to be paid for their work and don't want people taking it for free. It's a pretty simple and realistic request, but it's something we've never done before. Are we going to be able to start enforcing it now?
ReplyDelete