Students, cross your heart for you know how much Wikipedia has helped you out in your assignments to date – so those who have deadlines to meet might want to take note on this piece of news, where the founder of the non-profit information archive Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has informed the masses over Twitter that Wikipedia will shut down for a good 24 hours this Wednesday as part of his protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). His tweet reads, “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa” Bear in mind that this will only affect the English version of the site, which will make up of around 25 million visitors each day.
The 24 hour Wikipedia shutdown does not mean you will be served with a blank page, but rather, there will be instructions informing you on how you are able to reach out to your local US members of congress. Wales is keeping his fingers crossed that this particular measure might actually “melt phone systems in Washington” in terms of sheer volume. Other notable dotcom names that are against SOPA include Reddit, WordPress, and Mozilla.