âImagine a world without free pornâ, says blacked-out Wikipedia
The organisers of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia have warned web surfers that proposed legislation in the US may take us âback to the dark agesâ when it was necessary to pay to see womenâs breasts. Wikipedia is blacked out for 24 hours today in protest against the SOPA and PIPA laws currently being debated in the US Congress. âThese laws wonât be effective at their stated goal of stopping copyright infringement and will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet,â said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. âOr, to cut to the chase, they could mean that the only way to watch a Thai amputee fellating a dwarf is to fly to sit in a cabin smelling of used condom in Amsterdam and hope none of the junkies nick your wallet first.â PIPA and SOPA â which, contrary to articles posted on Wikipedia yesterday, have nothing to do with the Duchess of Cambridgeâs sister or pictures of naked women with implants lathering themselves in a shower â are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by websites out of US jurisdiction. According to Wales, however, they may actually infringe free expression while harming the Internet. âPutting the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material means that if you want to make a mint out of selling a clip of two Brazilian transexuals doing disgusting things with farm animals you will have to watch it yourself first,â warned Wales. âDo you want that? Because I donât. Seriously, no.â Added Wales: âThose who have grown up with an open, secure, and free Internet may take it for granted. But let me tell you, if youâd been a teenager in the 1970s and had never seen pubic hair except in a crumpled-up copy of âOuiâ you found discarded in a hedge by your school or had to sneak down to your parentsâ living room in the middle of a night and sit through two hours of cod-philosophising in a French art house film before finally getting a two-second glimpse of a fandango, youâd be as frustrated and irritable as I am right now â¦ What? Oh, shut UP.â