Why Wikipedia’s current “SOPA Blackout” is really not good

Posted by: bob on Wednesday January 18th 2012

Most people know I am the guy that does not care much about anything. I scoff at articles that I do not think make their point fast enough, things like that. You can say that is proven since my own blog here is not SOPA blocked. Today, however, I have chosen a side, and I need more space than Twitter allows because as it turns out, the people I pinged actually read their Twitter messages.

For a while now Wikipedia has been against the SOPA/PIPA act and was warning of an “information blackout” to happen today. The point was to demonstrate what the internet would be like if this thing was to pass and become law.

Most of the sites who cared enough to do this have been doing things like, forcing 503 redirects, or replacing their homepage completely. The number of sites doing this is small, but it makes the point of being unable to view the content.

Wikipedia however, has taken a Javascript approach where after the real page loads, they just stick a black overlay over the content. The real page is still under there, and it takes 1 second to kill it through various means. So what if the “average joe” cannot get around it? The point is SOMEONE (like myself) can get around it. It is not an information blackout, it is an information cover up, that’s all.

All that is going on is they are training people to find a way around it. Sort of like how people learned a way around paying for music. I had believed Wikipedia to be strong enough to make a real point with a real blackout. NOBODY should be able to get around it. That is how people like me are swayed.