Can the world live without Wikipedia for a day? The planned shutdown of one of the Internet’s most-visited sites is not sitting well with some of its volunteer editors, who say the protest of anti-piracy legislation could threaten the credibility of their work.
"My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that’s a slippery slope," said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge.
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Wikipedia was set to shut down access to its English-language site for 24 hours beginning at 10 p.m. Mountain time Tuesday. Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors will see information about the two congressional bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.
It is the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia’s Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance.
The shutdown adds to a growing body of critics who are speaking out against the legislation. But some editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.
One of the site’s "five pillars" of conduct says that Wikipedia "is written from a neutral point of view." The site strives to "avoid advocacy."
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues. The Wikimedia Foundation, which administers the site, announced the blackout Monday, after polling its community of volunteer contributors and getting responses from 1,800 of them. The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate.
"If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States," the foundation said.
Both bills are designed to crack down on sales of pirated American products overseas, and they have the support of the film and music industry. Among the opponents are Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and AOL. They say the bills would hurt their industry and infringe on free-speech rights.
Because Wikimedia depends on an army of volunteers who create and update articles, it’s particularly concerned about a lack of exemptions in the bills for sites where users might contribute copyrighted content. Today, it has no obligation under U.S. law except removing that content if a copyright holder complains. But under the House version of the bill, it could be shut down unless it polices its own pages.
Social news website Reddit.com is shutting down for 12 hours on Wednesday, but most companies are staying up. Google Inc. said it will display its opposition to the bill on its home page in some fashion.
Dick Costollo, CEO of Twitter, said he opposes the legislation, as well, but that shutting down the service was out of the question. "Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," Costollo tweeted.
Plans for the protest were moving forward, even though the bill’s prospects appeared to be dimming. On Saturday, Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Democrat, said the bill will not move to the House floor for a vote unless consensus is reached. However, Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said work on the bill would resume next month.
The White House raised concerns over the weekend, pledging to work with Congress to battle piracy and counterfeiting, while defending free expression, privacy and innovation on the Internet. The administration signaled it might use its veto power, if necessary.
That the bill seems unlikely to pass is another reason volunteer editor Lawton opposes the blackout.
"I think there are far more important things for the organization to focus aside from legislation that isn’t likely to pass anyway," he said. He’s been contributing to Wikipedia for eight years.
Danny Chia, another contributor to the site, said he had mixed feelings about the blackout. The neutrality applies to the content, but a lot of people interpret it as being about the site as a whole, said the Los Altos, Calif., software engineer.
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