by Nicole Powers

Despite the fact that the sound of crickets could be heard in all the coolest corners of the web, it was an EPIC day in internet history as thousands of sites went dark to protest SOPA and its sister act PIPA.

Here's a roundup of some of the sites that voluntarily plunged themselves into a temporary dark age for the greater good:


[Wikipedia]


[Reddit]


[CraigsList]


[BoingBoing]


[4chan]


[Colihouse]


[Firefox / Mozilla]


[Moveon]


[Rawstory hit Hitler's Bunker for audiovisual inspiration]


[Tumblr]


[Wired]


[Minecraft's graphic hit the mark]


[Fark went light]


[The Funny Died at Funny Or Die]


[Google continued searching...but still made their point]


[the Electronic Frontier Foundation]

It was also a great day for activism, with over 1 million emails sent to congress via the EFF action center.



Some Senators failed to hear the call of the internet, even as their sites turned into floundering fail whales...


[Oh Noes Newt!]

While other Representatives rose to the challenge:


[KeithEllison.org]

After being bombarded by phone calls, emails and online petitions, several senators distanced themselves from SOPA, with a total of 10 withdrawing their support by day's end. Meanwhile, with many of their fave sites offline, internet lovers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vegas took to the streets, and members of the artistic community made their voice herd with an open letter to Washington (via Neil Gaiman's blog):

But the MPAA and much of Hollywood's old guard remained defiant, their refusal to understand the new paradigm and their determination to wage war against their greatest consumers and turn their customers and champions into a criminal class merely underlining how out of touch they are with their future sales base and the outlets that promote their wares. (One genius meme likened SOPA to dealing with a lion that has escaped from a zoo by blasting some kittens with a flamethrower, which was a pretty damn accurate metaphor.) In a statement yesterday (see excerpt below) and via multiple (and quite absurd) tweets, the MPAA explained/excused their pro-SOPA stance by blaming foreign criminals, claiming that they were taking action to defend "American jobs" (and not the movie studios' bottom lines) – this, despite the fact that SOPA would put many websites like our own – and the jobs of the people who work at them – in jeopardy.

Though many of the politicians that support SOPA, and the corporations that bought them, also remained unrepentant, the unprecedented day of internet action thrust the issue to the fore, educating many who were previously unaware of the bill and forcing the mainstream media – however unwillingly – to report a little of the Orwellian reality that SOPA would bring.

The internet, and all the freedom fighters who sail on her, should give themselves a +1 for today.

**Update**
According to Wikipedia editor Aaron Muszalski (aka @sfslim), over 150 Million people have viewed Wikipedia's blackout page!

PIPA support collapses: According to Arstechnica, 18 Senators, of which 7 are former co-sponsors, now oppose bill.

Yahoo News / Digital Trends has an excellent article which breaks down the SOPA/PIPA blackout by the numbers. It includes the following statistics:

The Los Angeles Times reports that “8 million U.S. readers took Wikipedia’s suggestion and looked up their congressional reps from the site.”