Hypocrisy = Anti Online Piracy Legislation
Wikipedia blackout is meant to educate those who don't know about SOPA and PIPA. As much as we internet denizens are plugged in, the vast majority of America likely has no idea what the implications of these bills are. Site blackouts draw attention to the bills from people who otherwise would consider themselves unaffected.
here is a brief note on SOPA and PIPA
Stop SOPA
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.
Stop PIPA
The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 or PIPA), also known as Senate Bill 968 or S. 968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S.The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.
The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced on October 26, 2011.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a vote on the legislation for January 24, 2012.
Who is behind this….
Under SOPA (introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith, R–Tex., in October) and PIPA (by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D–Vt., last May), Congress sought to prevent Internet users from accessing foreign sites with pirated content by having service providers block those sites' domain names. The proposed legislation also threatened to punish any search engine providers, payment network providers and Internet advertising services that continued to support those infringing sites.
SOPA and PIPA's primary supporters are organizations—the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Rupert Murdoch–owned News Corp. among them—that invest heavily in creating movies, television programs and other content that makes its way to the Internet. The legislation's most vocal opponents have included Craigslist, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and Wikipedia—Web-based entities that benefit from this content.