Wikipedia founder: site goes black again if necessary

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says the website could be temporarily shut down again if necessary to put internet freedoms on the agenda. Wikipedia wants to continue to play a leading role in the fight for internet freedom.

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia ‘is once again willing to temporarily go off the air if necessary to convince politicians not to further restrict internet freedoms’. Jimmy Wales told The Wall Street Journal.

On July 10, the Russian section of Wikipedia went black to protest against national legislation, and there was a similar action in January. At that time, the English-language pages were temporarily unavailable in protest against SOPA.

Still, Wikipedia does not want to be known as an activist website. However, it wants to continue to play a leading role in the fight for global internet freedom. “We don’t really want to take Wikipedia offline again, but maybe it should happen again,” said Wales.