An example of censorship from a Wikia wiki.
Several wikis plan to be involved in their own blackouts as a protest of the SOPA and/or PIPA bill. Blackouts began before midnight on January 17th, 2012 and ended sometime on January 19th, 2012.
Purpose[]
Opponents of anti-piracy legislation believe if SOPA and PIPA are signed into law, the structure of the internet will break, dampening the free-exchange of information. The aim of blackout protests is to simulate internet censorship by blocking user access to potentially copyrighted material in the hopes of raising awareness about whom anti-piracy laws negatively effects and how the distribution of information on the internet will be disrupted.
Complete censorship[]
In the element of protest, some wikis decided to completely block users from viewing wiki articles, blogs, user pages, talk pages and articles of all kinds, superimposing their traditional layouts with black screens or mock-government seals that direct to information sites on the anti-piracy legislation as well as contact information for United States Senate and United States House of Representatives members.
Wikis participating in this type of protest:
- Call of Duty Wiki
- Elder Scrolls Wiki
- NFS World Info Wiki
- Grand Theft Encyclopedia
- Uncyclopedia
- Sonic News Network, the Sonic Wiki
- WikiSein
- Men in Black Wiki
- Lego Universe Wiki
- The Official Bethesda Softworks Wiki
- Dragon Ball Fanon Wiki
Partial censorship[]
An example of partially "blacked out" Wikia content.
Other wikis have decided to leave content accessible to users while adding political images, layouts, or backgrounds that announce the need to stop anti-piracy legislation. Still more decided to use black fonts and black backgrounds for their wiki, so as to limit content accessibility, but not completely "black" it out.
Wikis participating this type of protest:
- Disney Wiki
- Random-ness Wiki
- MySims Fanon Wiki
- Lego Universe Archives Wiki
- Need For Madness Wiki
An example of an Anti-SOPA propaganda done on Need For Madness Wiki's home page.
- The Classic Car Wiki
- The British Wildlife Wiki
- Sirius Chronicles Wiki
- RuneScape Wiki
- Pokemon Wiki
- The Chamber of Affinity Wiki
- Inciclopedia
- Animalpedia
- Star Wars Battlefront
- Total Drama Wiki
Websites not hosted by Wikia[]
A list of websites participating in similar "black out" protests are recorded at SOPAstrike.com. Most notable among these are Wikipedia, Google, and Mozilla.