Wikipedia outage sparks rage on Twitter
(CBS) - At midnight last night, Wikipedia took down its English language edition to protest the U.S. anti-piracy bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Although, Wikipedia posted a three-sentence statement on their landing page, people on Twitter were filled with rage and confused over why the site went dark.
Full coverage of SOPA/PIPA at Tech Talk
"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," said the statement.
"Wait... Is Wikipedia gone for forever or just a little while?" tweet @haileemorgannn. Gee, if only they made a statement telling us how long they'd be down.
"Why oh why have they shut down wikipedia?," tweeted @_bethanne_. An astute follower replied with "Did you read the page, really, it's 3 sentences, THREE!"
"Wikipedia is closed because the web is censored in China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc?" tweeted @robUx4. Mixing metaphors is bad, but mixing social movements is inexcusable!
These are just the clean tweets! Twitter accounts @herpderpedia and @WikiBlackout are retweeting some of the best reactions in the twitterverse - full of four-letter words.These poor kids. If only there was a place where people gathered to read and borrow books.
