Internet Blackout Coming To Show The EU Parliament It’s Not Just ‘Bots’ Concerned About Article 13

Last week Glyn mentioned that the German Wikipedia had announced plans to “go dark” this Thursday to protest Articles 11 and 13 of the EU Copyright Directive. And now it appears that a whole bunch of other websites will join in the protest (including us). While we won’t go completely dark, we’ll be putting up a banner in support of the many websites that do plan to go dark — and we’ve heard that an awful lot of websites will be joining in. Supporters keep trying to dismiss these complaints as just being “bots” or the big internet companies, but lots of others will be showing that this is about the broader internet this Thursday. This is just one of many protests happening this week, with in-person protests happening all through the EU this coming weekend as well. Meanwhile there are lots of efforts to get MEPs to pledge to vote against Article 13 that has been gaining momentum as well. I have no idea if these kinds of protests will be as effective as the blackday back during the SOPA fight, but I can say that Article 13 will be way worse for the internet than SOPA ever would have been.

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