Protests against SOPA

The 18th of January 2012 was an international day of protests against SOPA.

Several big websites, like google.com, wordpress.com, reddit.com went black, or had a slightly customized frontpage.

Joe’s Garage also protested against SOPA.

SOPA (the “Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” ) are bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, respectively. These bills are presented as efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but in our opinion, they do so in a way that would disrupt free expression and harm the Internet.  See here for more information :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18 (More than 12 thousand comments on this article!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc

http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html

The protests resulted in millions of people signing against SOPA/PIPA, and has made a countless amount of people aware of the problems regarding SOPA/PIPA.

But the struggle is not over yet. The SOPA hearings will continue in february :

http://www.osnews.com/story/25523/SOPA_Not_Shelved_Hearings_To_Continue_in_February

Gallery of screenshots of websites protesting :

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