Protest against SOPA takes Reddit and Wikipedia into the fold, Google and Facebook remain undecided – Part 2

Facebook is on the verge of going public and cannot take the risk of taking the online social network down although the move will be the strongest statement of all. With a user-pool of around 800 million, the website can assist the protest against SOPA on an immeasurable level but the company cannot take the risk of disappointing its potential investors.

Aside from Google and Facebook, Wikipedia is the most powerful source of information on the internet. The online community—dedicated to free encyclopaedia—has agreed to participate fully on Wednesday.

Here’s what founder Jimmy Wales had to say on a Wiki discussion page about the topic:

“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. But that means we need to move forward quickly on a concrete proposal and vote – we don’t have the luxury of time that we usually have, in terms of negotiating with each other for weeks about what’s exactly the best possible thing to do. As I understand it, the Foundation is talking to people about how we can geolocate and guide people to their Congressperson, etc. Geoff will know about that. Our task is to decide to do it with a thumbs up / thumbs down vote.”

Wikipedia’s nature of business is totally different from Google, Twitter and Facebook. It is a non-profit online community and therefore, does not have the worries of finances and investors. If Wikipedia comes down on Wednesday, the protest will register a strong statement against SOPA.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Jan 14 2012. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.