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I think they have followed an erroneous path towards the decision that this should be a global blackout. I'm not in the US, so this affects my view. I believe

by kokey 15y ago

I think they have followed an erroneous path towards the decision that this should be a global blackout. I'm not in the US, so this affects my view. I believe the vote was highly biased towards contributors who obviously followed their way to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative because they already care about SOPA. As someone outside of the US, I don't particularly care. The US already has stupid laws, like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which isn't actively copied by most other countries and has created opportunity and profit outside of the US. Like most people outside of the US, I don't care if they can't drink before they are 21, gamble online or export cryptography. In fact, I'm happy that the US can pass stupid laws like that since it creates opportunity for the rest of the world. Not that I agree with SOPA, I think it's a stupid law, but I don't think Wikipedia should subject the rest of the world to this. Think about it, how can one now honestly tell countries like China that Wikipedia is not controlled by US political thought, when it's advertising exactly that through this action.

dspillett 15y ago
> I'm not in the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came... In the UK where we can't deport a "cleric" who is guilty of hate crimes, people can be deported to the US for breaking their copyright laws with no reference to the legality or not of their actions according to our laws. No doubt other countries have similar relationships with the US. Not being in the US does not mean you are completely shielded from the affects of US laws. There are side affects too, you don't have to be directly affected by the law to have an effect on your life. If Wikipedia content came under the scrutiny of laws such as this and had to be taken down, being US based they would have to take the content down for all users not just US based ones. OK the site could move all its hosting arrangements and its employees could all move to another territory but that: 1. is hardly practical 2. doesn't entirely solve the jurisdiction issue, unless you know of a magic country that will stand up to the US legal system, allows the current freedom of expression Wikipedia depends upon, has the technical infrastructure to support such sites, and that the relevant people will be happy to move to.

by kokey 15y ago

dspillett 15y ago

> I'm not in the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came... In the UK where we can't deport a "cleric" who is guilty of hate crimes, people can be deported to the US for breaking their copyright laws with no reference to the legality or not of their actions according to our laws. No doubt other countries have similar relationships with the US. Not being in the US does not mean you are completely shielded from the affects of US laws. There are side affects too, you don't have to be directly affected by the law to have an effect on your life. If Wikipedia content came under the scrutiny of laws such as this and had to be taken down, being US based they would have to take the content down for all users not just US based ones. OK the site could move all its hosting arrangements and its employees could all move to another territory but that: 1. is hardly practical 2. doesn't entirely solve the jurisdiction issue, unless you know of a magic country that will stand up to the US legal system, allows the current freedom of expression Wikipedia depends upon, has the technical infrastructure to support such sites, and that the relevant people will be happy to move to.