Star of the protest is Web giant Wikipedia, which planned to shut all 3.8 million of its English-language pages from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. Those pages will show nothing but a black message opposing SOPA. The move, discussed in the Wikipedia world since December, was confirmed Monday by founder Jimmy Wales after the idea received widespread support in the Wikipedia comunity.
Among the estimated 7,000 other sites involved are the popular social media site Reddit, as well as Mozilla, iHeartChaos, MoveOn.org, and BoingBoing. For cyberhacker group Anonymous, Wednesday will be a day of rest. Blogging platform WordPress offers a plug-in that gives bloggers a banner publicizing the protest. Even Google is weighing in. It won't go dark, but it is placing a link on its home page to tell users about the issue.
Erik Martin, general manager of Reddit, said by phone from San Francisco, "We wanted to raise awareness" about the perceived threat posed by the bills. "We thought blacking out would focus people on making calls and telling friends about it."
It's a dramatic standoff between established industries - multimedia companies, publishers, recording companies, pharmaceuticals - and Internet sites that, while small in comparison, represent the present and future of the Web.
The battle has had its twists and turns. The film, music, and entertainment industries - including Disney, News Corp., the NFL, Time Warner, Viacom - spent more than $91 million last year lobbying for the bills. The biggest names on the Net - Google, AOL, Yahoo, Twitter - wrote a letter to key leaders in Congress warning against them.
