New York / Washington / Berlin - strike on the Internet: The English language version of online encyclopedia Wikipedia is gone for the day on Wednesday by the network.
The creators of the web encyclopaedia in protest against two proposed U.S. legislation that, in the fight against piracy on the Internet drastic measures such as power locks. Many other sites such as Google on Wednesday took part in the protest were, but not offline. There was a coordinated resistance of this magnitude has never been found on the Internet. In the meantime, seems to support the U.S. Congress for legislation to erode gradually.
Critics argue that the planned infrastructure censored unpopular content and Internet users could be spoon-fed. To similar objections were last year also failed barrings plans in Germany. In this country, however, were not the focus of copyright infringement, but the fight against child pornography. The prohibited content will be deleted right now so that power locks are no longer necessary. The music and film industry is, however, even in Europe continues to be a lock for piracy on the net.
When Wikipedia was posted on Wednesday displayed instead of the usual English-language entries, a dark side, with a protest statement. Google search box placed under his link to an online petition against the law. For users in the United States, the colorful Google logo was covered with a black square. Throughout the network were also the world's popular web-blog "Boing Boing" and the online network Reddit. The homepage of the blog platform WordPress was "censored" full of black blocks with the label. Even the funny cat pictures known for fun side "I can have Cheese Burger" was a protest statement.