At Midnight Wikipedia Will Blackout Globally

In less than 11 hours, the English version of Wikipedia will black out for 24 hours straight in protest of two proposed legislative bills - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOP) and the Protest IP Act (PIPA).

CBS News reports that MoveOn, Reddit and Mozzilla will also shut down in protest of the proposed laws. Curious internet users will be greeted with instructions on how to contact their legislative representatives instead of the usual free Wikipedia articles, Reuters reports.

An official statement from the Wikimedia Foundation explains the online encyclopedia's decision:

In late 2011, the United States Congress proposed two legislative bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which legal scholars and others have advised have the potential to significantly change the way that information can be shared through the Internet. It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.