The 24 hour long blackout that left frequent Wikipedia users without the site for an entire day has ended. Wikipedia claims that the move was a grand success and that estimated 162 million users saw the blacked out pages which asked them whether they would imagine a world without free knowledge.
Wikipedia’s blackout against acts like the SOPA and PIPA was the most potent of all the protests that the World Wide Web saw yesterday. There were other sites too that did their share of protests – but it was arguably Wikpedia that stole the show thanks to it opting for a complete blackout of its English language site. Others like Google and Twitter did show their support – but in a much subtler manner.
That said it was pertinent to note that there were plenty of workarounds to access the site during this blackout. In fact, tips on how to access Wikipedia during the blackout were posted even before the blackout period started. Once it commenced, people came up with even newer tricks to access the site – the easiest one being the method wherein all you need to do was to press the ESC key before the entire Wikipedia page loaded.
Now that the blackout period has ended, Wikipedia has posted an official Thank You note here which claims that “millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet”. The site also promises that their crusade against these acts would continue while warning that the SOPA and PIPA are “not dead” and are “waiting in the shadows”.
Did this 24 hour long blackout affect you in any way?
