Google has dropped its logo shroud, Wikipedia has returned from limbo, normal service in general has been resumed, and all’s right with the world … except that SOPA and PIPA are still looming on Capitol Hill. So did yesterday’s blackout protests against these bills have an actual impact?
Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales certainly thinks they did. He’s taking a victory lap today, after blacking out the world’s fifth most trafficked website for 24 hours to raise awareness of the bills, offering a “thank you” message to supporters that claims over 162 million people saw Wikipedia’s anti-SOPA, anti-PIPA message.
You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet.
(MORE: Paint It Black: 7 Ways You Can Protest SOPA and PIPA)
On Wikipedia’s SOPA Initiative/Learn More page, the site notes that more than 12,000 people commented on the Wikimedia Foundation’s post announcing the blackout — ”A breathtaking majority supported the blackout.” On Twitter, Wikipedia says the hashtag topic #wikipediablackout “at one point … constituted 1% of all tweets,” and that SOPA-related Twitter posts were popping off at a rate of a quarter-million every hour. And finally: Wikipedia says over 8 million visitors used the site’s zip code tool to look up their elected representatives.
All the traffic to congressional websites definitely had an impact: at one point Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) tweeted “Anti- #PIPA, #SOPA traffic has temporarily shut down our website.” Other congressional websites were reportedly slow to load throughout the day or returned error messages for visitors.
