Many prominent webpages on the Internet are taking the day off today. In a very unified protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) that Congress is thinking about passing, many of the most visited pages on the Internet are participating in a blackout.

The idea of SOPA is to stop illegal use of American copyrights, PIPA is to be able to track whichwebsites each individual IP address goes to. While that might sound good in theory, the enforcement would likely shut down websites like YouTube, Facebook and many other heavy hitters in the web world.

So in a sign of solidarity among the major players on the Internet, pages like Google, Wikipedia and Craigslist are “blacked out” today.

Many of the sites participating in the blackout will still function as normal just blacking out their logo. Like Google:

But others like Craigslist are using this day to just raise awareness for their cause against SOPA & PIPA before allowing regular access to their sites.

Wikipedia is completely shutting down for the day. You can not use the site as normal, you will get redirected to this page:

And you can read all about SOPA and PIPA and how to join in their cause, but you can’t use Wikipedia in it’s normal state.

All the sites will be back to normal tomorrow. As for SOPA & PIPA, they aren’t dead in Congress and the major web players are hoping this blackout will help raise awareness against these two acts.

Have a good day on the Internet, and just know, wxrt.com is up and running as normal!