How to Get Around Wikipedia’s SOPA Blackout
For those people across the United States who are in desperate need of some quick knowledge and have noticed that Wikipedia’s widely used database of information is not accessible Wednesday, Web gurus have come to the aid of the general population to explain just how users can get around the company’s blackout protest.
For starters, people with Web access on their cell phones need not fret, as thus far, individuals have been able to access the site via their mobile devices. Other telephone options include downloading applications that can access Wikipedia, such as Wikidroid or Wikipedia Mobile.
Sarah Maslin Nir of The New York Times advises users to hit the escape key on their keyboards prior to the Wikipedia page loading in order to avoid black out.
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Athima Chansanchai at MSN.com directs users who would like to access the site via computers to disable Javascript on their machines. This move will enable users who pull up the site to change their country of access, as the English version of the site is the only version disabled for the day.
Users who do change their country of access will be asked if they would like to have their page translated into English, enabling users to access content in other languages but translated into English. Chansanchai suggests that users choose French, as Wikipedia’s French language version has the “second largest repository of articles."
Additionally, people can look at Google cached pages to view older posts. The option was made available through the work of former Adobe designer Philip Bump and can be accessed here.
Beyond taking the old fashion route of going to the library to look up pressing questions, users can also download the entire version of the site in about a week. However, since the website is only conducting its protest for a day, the move might be unnecessary for most users.
Wikipedia will be undergoing a 24-hour period of blackout on Wednesday in protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Wikipedia, along with a slue of other popular websites, have turned off access to their sites to protest the possible passage of SOPA, which they believe hamper citizens' rights to free and available knowledge.
The act is slated to be undergoing Congressional consideration in about two weeks, but the company believes that SOPA could potentially hamper free knowledge available on the Internet.
“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,” the website says.
The website has a box in which users can type in their postal codes which will pull up their representatives and the site is encouraging people to call and express their disdain for SOPA.
