Mozilla, Word Press and TwitPic have joined a growing list of websites that plan to go dark Wednesday to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, CBS News reports.
MoveOn.org, a liberal political action committee and advocacy group, is also going offline.
“Congress is playing fast and loose with Internet censorship legislation that would have people like Justin Bieber thrown in jail for uploading a video to YouTube,” Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, said in a statement.
Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing have already announced that they plan to go offline Wednesday.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, tweeted: “All US Citizens: #WikipediaBlackout means nothing unless you call your Senators. Do it now! Give friends the number too!”
But not all protest sympathizers — including Facebook, Google and Twitter — believe that going dark is the best tactic. Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo calls Wikipedia’s plans to pull the plug “foolish” and “silly,” The Guardian reports.
Google will post a link on its home page to explain its opposition to the anti-piracy bills, CNET reports.
Supporters of the bill — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, Country Music Association and Motion Picture Association of America — argue that the intent is to the stop the illegal copying of their movies or music that threatens their businesses, ABC News reports.
Article source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/01/more-web-sites-plan-blackouts-in-protest-against-sopa-pipa/1