Earlier today a number of web sites including Wikipedia, Minecraft.net and others went dark for a planned 24 hour protest of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. At 8 am Eastern time this morning a number of other web sites decided to go dark for 12 hours, until 8 pm tonight, for their own protests of SOPA and PIPA.
The highest profile web site that has shut down for 12 hours today is Reddit.com. The site is currently displaying the above image as well as information about both bills that are currently being debated before the US Congress. That site has been joined by several others including BoingBoing.net, MoveOn.Org, Bluesnews.com, Destructoid.com, the Consumer Electronics Association"s web site and more. The Gamasutra gaming news web site is still up but they have indicated they won"t update the site with any news stories for 12 hours.
While the debate for the SOPA bill won"t be taken up again by the US House of Representatives until sometime in February, the PIPA bill is currently scheduled to come before a vote by the US Senate on January 24, despite efforts by a group of Senators to delay those actions.
Image via Reddit.com