Welcome to internet censorship day!
You may notice something strange if you pop a random question into Google: Wikipedia won't be there to answer it.
Jan. 18th, 2012, is an internet-wide protest of the SOPA/PIPA legislation. You may notice a lot of your favorite websites down. The big guys (Facebook, Google) won't be down. However, you will likely notice a different internet. The following websites are participating in the protest:
WordPress (a blogging site).
Mozilla (the browser).
Craigslist will be shutdown.
Google will have a link to a protest site on its front-page.
Wikipedia will be shut down for 24 hours.
Reddit will be shut down from 8am till 8pm (consequently, this will literally be my most productive, and most boring, day of the year).
All supporters of the protest are supposed to maintain "Twitter silence" from 8am-8pm.
Imgur (an image hosting site) will be shut down.
Tumblr will be shut down.
I think that ICanHazCheezburger.com will be down. For the first time in years, the internet will be without funny pictures of cats.
And yes, even our very own Syracuse University is joining the fun! SU's iSchool will be "darking" its website in protest.
Many other sites will also be down (without as much name recognition).
It remains to be seen what effect, if any, this protest will have. At the very least, those who are not aware of SOPA/PIPA will have to notice this.
For those interested, a reddit user put together a very comprehensive flow-chart on SOPA. The flow-chart includes links to opinions from law professors, the text of the bills, practically everything you'd need to know.
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Edit: Check out Google's front page. The Google Icon is censored.
Wikipedia is displaying the following message: "For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."
Craigslist: "PS: corporate paymasters, KEEP THOSE CLAMMY HANDS OFF THE INTERNET!"
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