Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, is instituting a global “day of darkness”, which will see 25 million English-language daily users blocked until 5am on Thursday. Photograph: Felix Clay
Millions of students, fact hunters and general knowledge buffs are set to receive a shockon Wednesday when the digital encyclopaedia Wikipedia shuts down for 24 hours in protest at internet piracy laws being considered by US legislators.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of the world's fifth most popular website, is instituting a global "day of darkness" for the English-language version of Wikipedia, which will see its 25 million daily users blocked until 5am on Thursday.
Wales is calling for a "public uprising" against the stop online piracy act (Sopa) and protect IP, two US bills which he has called "destructive legislation" that, if passed, would "endanger free speech and set a frightening precedent of internet censorship for the world".
Others joining what has been dubbed "black Wednesday" include the user-generated content recommendation website Reddit , technology news site Boing Boing , and the Cheezburger network of humorous sites .
When web users visit Wikipedia on Wednesday morning they will not be able to access the 3.8m English articles it holds. Instead, they will see an open letter encouraging people to protest against the legislation. Wales issued a tongue-in-cheek warning to students to make sure to "do your homework early". "They may have to dust off their old Encyclopaedia Britannica," he said.
The proposed legislation is the product of years of lobbying by the piracy-hit media, film and music industries and would make it easier for copyright holders and the US government to cut off access to websites accused of containing illegal films, music and TV programming.
Opposing them are some of the most high profile of the new wave of digital companies that have grown rapidly over the past decade to challenge the traditional media, film and music industries, including Wikipedia and Google. The latter is not shutting down for the day, but will be highlighting the issue on its US home page.
The issue has dragged media heavyweights into the fray, with Rupert Murdoch – whose News Corporation owns content producers including 20th Century Fox, the Hollywood studio behind blockbusters such as Avatar – taking to Twitter to attack president Obama after the White House indicated that it would not support the more draconian elements of Sopa.
"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy. Plain thievery," Murdoch wrote in a series of tweets, which also accused Google of facilitating piracy.
Stephen Fry, a prolific tweeter and digital media evangelist, came out in support of Wikipedia , saying that he felt "ashamed" of the entertainment industry. "Good for Wikipedia," he tweeted his 3.7 million followers . "Ashamed to work in an industry many of whose leaders have tried to push this revolting law through."
Opponents of the bills argue they are too broad and could amount to Chinese-style censorship of free speech on the internet, stifle innovation, and lead to the unfair closure of numerous websites.
Most of Silicon Valley has rallied to protest against the US bills, with a letter expressing concern over the legislation signed by the founders of internet heavyweights including Twitter, YouTube, eBay, Yahoo, Flickr and Craigslist.
Companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Zynga also took outa full-page ad , entitled "We stand together to protect innovation", which ran in newspapers including the New York Times.
However, so far none of the global big hitters have opted to join Wikipedia's call for a "day of darkness".
A Google spokesman said: "Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the internet. So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page."
Wikipedia's aggressive move appeared to be undermined by a tweet from Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, who tweeted: "Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish." However, Costolo clarified his position on Tuesday saying that his comments referred to Twitter not being willing to close down globally for a day, and that it was not a "value judgment" about Wikipedia's action. He also tweeted for people to "watch this space" about Twitter's own protest plans.
Twitter general counsel Alex MacGillivray pointed out the company had backed the letter expressing concern over the proposed legislation.
Wales said: "[Costolo] is not critical of Wikipedia at all on this, that is 100% false. He is 100% supportive, he has been badly misinterpreted. Twitter should stay up, it is helping the public organise the protest."
Wales maintained that despite the receding threat of the Sopa bill becoming US law as it stands, it was still important that Wikipedia went through with its pledge to shut down.
"We are grateful of the comments from the White House, but the bills are still very much alive, particularly protect IP in the Senate," he said.
Although the legislation is American, Wales said a vote held among the Wikipedia community had come down in favour of a global blackout – albeit not with an overwhelming majority: 591 voted for it and 479 were against.
Wales said the case of Richard O'Dwyer, the British computing student who faces extradition to the US over running a pirate TV and film website, is proof online piracy legislation is a global issue.
"The community considered the option of a US-only blackout but decided in favour of global," Wales added. "The primary considerations are that, as you have seen in the UK with the recent extradition hearings for Richard O'Dwyer, the US law can have an impact on people everywhere."
The UK is looking at its own measures to tackle piracy through the Digital Economy Act, with much-delayed plans to send out warning letters to serial offenders before they face having their internet connection cut off.
A coalition of the big six Hollywood studios – Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount, Disney, Universal and Columbia – won a landmark high court ruling last year to force UK internet service providers to block individual websites accused of promoting piracy.
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