Last week, there were some rumors that a few rather high-profile sites were considering taking down their sites, possibly in conjunction with SOPA and PIPA returning to Congress January 23 and 24. Within a day, the rumors were denied. Today, however, several have stepped up to say there will be blackouts, and January 18 is the day.
- Reddit will go down from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET on January 18, replacing its site with a message about how SOPA, PIPA, or similar legislation would shut down sites like Reddit. It will also run a live video stream of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Internet security and intellectual property as they relate to the economy.
- Anonymous took its cue from Reddit and will hold a communications blackout during the same hours.
- All Cheezburger sites will be blacking out January 18 as well. Ben Huh asked on Twitter for Wikipedia to join in as well.
- But Wikipedia is still a "maybe." When asked for comment, Jimmy Wales wrote: "I'm all in favor of it, and I think it would be great if we could act quickly to coordinate with Reddit. I'd like to talk to our government affairs advisor to see if they agree on this as useful timing, but assuming that's a greenlight, I think that matching what Reddit does (but in our own way of course) per the emerging consensus on how to do it, is a good idea."
Collaborative lists of sites joining the blackout are forming in several places, including:
- http://willyou.typewith.me/p/SOPAblackout
- http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/ofh9n/can_we_get_a_list_of_all_the_websites_confirmed/
- http://nlb-creations.com/2012/01/13/websites-confirmed-for-the-jan-18-blackout-protesting-sopa/
- http://sopastrike.com/
If you want to be certain that a specific site is participating, look for confirmation from them or ask--I've found a few inconsistencies on these lists from sites that have not publicly said they're participating.
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