Wikipedia goes black out to protest against SOPA, PIPA

Starting later today until 24 hours after that, Wikipedia.org will go dark (English language) as a sign of protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).

While other protesting websites (Facebook and Google) will not go as far as going dark like Wikipedia, users may see links, notifications and/or banners on their website to show their support against these bills.

In a nut shell, SOPA and PIPA aim to protect intellectual property and counterfeit drugs. Aside from online freedom of speech, many believed that it will pose a much greater threat to the online community as this will deeply affect e-commerce and the way people share knowledge/information on the internet.

There are other technicalities and effects (good or bad) that are not mentioned here that influences how people view SOPA and PIPA. As of now, we can only guess how great of an impact these bills will have on how we use the internet and how successful the protests are to stop it from being passed. Please tell us your views about these bills.

Editor’s Note: This entry was written by Ronnie Bulaong, a special features contributor for YugaTech. He used to work as Manager at one of the top BPOs in the country. Follow him on Twitter @turonbulaong.

Yuga’s Notes: I’m supposed to go on air at ANC tonight at 7PM to talk about the effects of SOPA/PIPA to Filipinos but could not make it since I’m still sick.

Let me share though that this SOPA/PIPA will definitely affect a lot of people, especially publishers and website owners who run most of their operations from US-based companies (like upstream providers, web hosts as well as related services like YouTube, Flickr, etc). Learn more about SOPA & PIPA here.