English Wikipedia Blackout

[Duskling]

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

Wikipedia will have a blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA. More information on the page of the link.

"Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18"

Above quote provided for those who could not access the link due to blackout.

Not sure if this should be in "Politics," but this is less about politics and more about just keeping people informed.

This only applies to the English Wikipedia, at least at the moment.

[Steelfist]

I'm personally in favor of it, even if it will inconvenience a lot of people. I don't have much to add to the arguments they've already made, so I'll settle for just agreeing.

[Ertxiem]

Same here.

[bugfartboy]

Yup. To me, Internet censorship=bad bad things man.

[SmartyPants]

Wikipedia claims to be non-bais, yet they are siding with only one side of a political issue.  Ironically, they are censoring information they don't want the public to see (which is everthing that isn't about SOPA, PIPA, or the SOPA initiative).  It all seems pointless when this bill is unlikely to pass with or without all this internet blackouting.

[CraigStern]

They aim to make the wiki entries on their site unbiased. That's a little different than acting on a macro level to exert influence in a matter which directly concerns the ability of their site to survive into the future.

[SmartyPants]

Like Fox News, wikipedia is promoting one side of a political issue, while claiming to be unbiased.  It doesn't matter if they benefit from a certain side of an issue; promoting one side over another is being bias.  Walt Disney, a company that is heavly hurt by internet piracy, would be criticized for using their "nonbias" news networks to promote a law that benefits them.   Internet companies should be held to same standard as hollywood companies when comes to using company resources to help themselves politically.

[ArtDrake]

Um. I'd just like to point out, since you seem to make the mistake a lot, that "bias" is a noun, whereas "biased" is the past participle used as an adjective. You keep talking about "bias" sources and "bias" materials, but the word to use is "biased", unless you mean the rare use of "bias" as an adjective, meaning diagonal.

[SmartyPants]

Do you have any non-grammar related points?

[Steelfist]

Wikipedia doesn't claim to be unbiased, but rather that the information it supplies is not (Usually) biased, as it is user-contributed by various people of differing viewpoints. And Wikipedia should be biased as a site, as it will be directly and adversely affected.

To take your examply of Walt Disney:

Walt Disney, a company that is heavly hurt by internet piracy, would be criticized for using their "nonbias" news networks to promote a law that benefits them.

This is true. But it isn't a parallel case; for Wikipedia to be compared to this theoretical case they would have to alter the information on their site (the wiki entries) in order to support their view. This they have not done. They have merely put forward their view in an article, raised awareness of the issue and made it clear that they could not function under the legislation.

None of this, in my opinion, makes wikipedia a biased or invalidated source of information. Nor is it, in my opinion, wrong. After all, Wikipedia is meant to help people; they make no profit, nor do they endorse piracy, so why should they be shut down? Personally, I feel that if legislation damages an innocent site like Wikipedia there is a problem with it.

[ArtDrake]

Yes, I do have a non-grammar-related point, but I wanted to say the grammar-related one first. I thought it was more important.

Wikipedia's policy of nonbias applies only to the content in their articles; the website owner, webmaster, or staff themselves are free to express any opinion or biased idea they wish to without breaking their policy so long as they do not alter the content of their encyclopaedic articles so as to express that bias.

It may be tactless to do so in certain circumstances, but in this case it could certainly be argued that Wikipedia retains its tact on this point.

[SmartyPants]

This is true. But it isn't a parallel case; for Wikipedia to be compared to this theoretical case they would have to alter the information on their site (the wiki entries) in order to support their view. This they have not done. They have merely put forward their view in an article, raised awareness of the issue and made it clear that they could not function under the legislation.

So, it is okay for them to act like China and shut down only the information that they don't want the public to read as long as that information is unbaised?

[ArtDrake]

Negative. The intent is to promote awareness of a particular issue for a limited time, and not to limit, restrict, or prevent awareness of multiple issues indefinitely.

[Steelfist]

This is true. But it isn't a parallel case; for Wikipedia to be compared to this theoretical case they would have to alter the information on their site (the wiki entries) in order to support their view. This they have not done. They have merely put forward their view in an article, raised awareness of the issue and made it clear that they could not function under the legislation.

So, it is okay for them to act like China and shut down only the information that they don't want the public to read as long as that information is unbaised?

I fail to see the relevance of your point (If it is a point at all); Wikipedia temporarily shut down the majority of their site to protest a point and raise awareness. The prevention of the public accessing their site (Which was intentionally easy to get around) was not censorship, but protest designed to emulate the effect of SOPA and PIPA - it was not a case of not allowing the public to read certain information in case it supported an opposing point. Given your usual coherence, and lack thereof in this topic, I am beginning to suspect that you are joking.

[SmartyPants]

According to the New York Times, SOPA and PIPA was just a scam by the Obama administration to raise campaign money for Obama's 2012 election.  The bills were not put forth with any intention of them getting passed, but instead they were designed to extort campaign contributions by pitting Hollywood against Silicon Valley.  These bills were very successful in creating hype, while accomplishing nothing to combat online piracy.

Another tactic that politicians use is something beltway insiders call “milker bills.” These are bills designed to “milk” donations from threatened individuals or businesses. The real trick is to pit two industries against each other and pump both for donations, thereby creating a “double milker” bill.

President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. seemed to score big in 2011 using the milker tactic in connection with two bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. By pitting their supporters in Silicon Valley who opposed the bills against their allies in Hollywood who supported the measures, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden were able to create a sort of fund-raising arms race.

In the first half of 2011, Silicon Valley had chipped in only $1.7 million to Mr. Obama’s political campaign. The president announced that he would “probably” sign antipiracy legislation — a stance that pleased Hollywood and incensed Silicon Valley. The tech industry then poured millions into Mr. Obama’s coffers in the second half of 2011. By January of 2012, Hollywood had donated $4.1 million to Mr. Obama.

Then, suddenly, on Jan. 14, 2012, the White House announced that it had problems with the antipiracy bills and neither passed. “He didn’t just throw us under the bus,” one film executive and longtime supporter of Mr. Obama anonymously told The Financial Times, “he ran us down, reversed the bus and ran over us again.”