Ok, so it’s not quite that bad, but a large percentage of the online population is having to survive today without access to their information ‘Oracle’ of Wikipedia.
This forms part of a number of US websites deciding to go ‘dark’ today in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Visitors to Wikipedia are today confronted by a rather stylish black holding page with the words ‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge’ with a link to find out more and social media share buttons to spread the word. Don’t panic just yet though as not all knowledge is lost for today as there are a few workarounds (a well timed use of the Escape button when loading the wikipedia page and also different language pages of the site).
It might though be a good challenge for the day for us to not rely on Wikipedia as our source of all knowledge. It is a great social media tool – a resource for many of us to check a quick fact – but it’s worth remembering that it is shared knowledge that may not yet be completely factually checked and needs cross-referencing before quoting it as nothing but the truth.
Google and Mozilla are taking slightly less drastic action, referencing their protest through black pages on their normal screens with further links for supporters.
So what’s it all about? A great summary comes from VentureBeat:
“SOPA and PIPA will give the US government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against foreign-operated websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property.”
This would mean a website accused of including copyright-infringing content could be blocked by ISPs, de-indexed from search engines and using online services such as PayPal, which would have a huge impact on any business.
It’s an area full of debate and concern, as well as some confusion as to how it would / could actually operate. It’s also one for marketers and brand managers to keep a close eye on in our increasingly digital world.
