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Uncategorized Wednesday, January 18th 2012 at 11:08 am

Herpderpedia is a Front Row Seat to the Confusion Surrounding the Wikipedia Blackout

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When I first read that the Wikipedia blackout was happening, I wished that I could just pull a up lawn chair on the Wikipedia homepage and spend the day watching the bewildered faces of everyone who had no clue what was going on as they lashed out in anger, fear, and frustration. Now, thanks to @herpderpedia, I can. And so can you.

The hero behind @herpderpedia is performing a simple but important public service: Trolling the trending topics, something I am loathe to do, and retweeting bewildered responses to the Wikipedia blackout, ostensibly the best ones because they are getting more hilarious by the minute.

Of course, there’s a little more to it than pure tourism. For one, it’ll raise your blood pressure a little because so many people not only don’t know what’s going on — which is fine, that’s why Wikipedia decided to do this — but because so many people go and ask about it on Twitter instead of reading the very unsubtle splash page on Wikipedia itself. Although in their defense, Wikipedia requires you do the arduous task of clicking a link and then reading if you want to know what’s going on.

On the lighter side, the @herpdepedia stream is a game of sorts. So many of the tweets cut so close to the bone as to read as parody. Admittedly, some of them actually are parody. 99% of the ones mentioning soap, for instance. Depending on how cynical you are, it’s a game of varying difficulty to guess which ones are real and which ones you need to believe are fake in order to keep your faith in humanity. Basically, it’s like reading down any given trending topic. All that being said, I posted some of my favorites below to give you an idea. Heads up: Hilarious profanity ahead.

(via @herpderpedia)

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  • http://twitter.com/Mesoian Mesoian

    Well, this is what we wanted, awareness from the pleebs…

  • Anonymous

    If only this was more of awareness and less of blind rage. I hope these people learn at some point today what’s going on. :

  • Asreal

    LOL! What’re the odds that these were senators in favor of SOPA making these posts? :D

  • Enthusiast

    Yeah, if Congress’ current member rolls are any indication, the intelligent voters are outnumbered 2:1 by voting pleebs… might as well get them on our side.

  • http://twitter.com/BecksInsanity Guy Who Talks Polytx

    This shit has nothing to do with Wikipedia. It only shuts down websites that illegally pirate movies and music for profit. Wikipedia isn’t a piracy website.

  • Sopa is bad M’kay…

    You need to do some research. This has *everything* to do with Wikipedia. Please read up on SOPA before posting derp comments like this.

  • You sir are an…

    What an asshat comment.

  • Guest

    It shuts down any site that has any link to any site that has “copywritten” material on it. So if wikipedia links to a site that has copywritten material wikipedia gets taken down too. 

  • Igzycvyc

    Not sure if you’re a troll, or just an idiot.

  • Mc700700521

    These bills give the government the authority to shut down any internet source that links or provides access to copyright violations. Wikipedia has links to hundreds of thousands of other sources, and any of these linked sources contain copyright violations, the entirety of wikipedia is in jeopardy. The same is true for youtube, Facebook, myspace, and even google. For example, if one youtube subscriber posts a video of herself dancing to a new song (and the song is copyrighted as most are), the federal government can shut down youtube. 

  • justsomeguy

    “I think Wikipedia planned this shit”. Fucking classic.

  • justsomeguy

    No, SOPA shuts down websites that LINK to infringing websites also. Try using google while you still have the chance too.

  • Anjuli Ambani

    Of course it’s not a piracy website. No-one said it was! 
    I suggest though before you post inane comments that you get your facts straight. You’re as clueless as the idiot posts on herpderpedia

  • Jim Johnson

    That’s what they want you to think, but the problem everyone has with the Bills is that their language leaves tremendous room for abuse not the fact that its dealing with piracy. If you actually READ what the bills say, there’s a line which implicates websites that “facilitate” the posting of copyright materials and it wants to give power to the MPAA and RIAA to censor whatever they want outside of a court.  Even with current DMCA policies, the MPAA and RIAA have taken down legitimate websites in “error”, so giving them more power and room for abuse is dangerous.
    Wikipedia is a COMMUNITY based website which relies on user input, if a user decides to upload a infringing material, it can be censored and blocked without any due process.

  • Actoncole94

    Someone should prolly tell this kid Obama opposes SOPA before he tries to leap over the white house fence and make a run at him.

  • Jdyearsley

    Except it does. Websites that are accused of hosting copyrighted content are instantly accountable for their users actions and can be taken down very easily under SOPA/PIPA. Basically what it means for Wikipedia is that every single edit done would have to be double-checked by somebody to make sure that it didn’t have anything that could possible ever be construed as copyrighted material by any media organization, grinding them to a halt.

  • aaron

    It’s taken out of context. He was saying (facetiously) that they intentionally took it down right before finals.

  • Anonymous

    Actually, no. If Wikipedia even links to a site that someone claims has any content that violates their copyright, the whole site could be taken down. So, yes, it directly affects wikipedia, considering how its entire structure is set up to reference links. 

    “It only shuts down websites that illegally pirate movies and music for profit.”, right. Just like there are no false DMCA takedowns, right? No obvious and clear abuses?

  • IdiotHater

    Which is incorrect, as SOPA actually simply provides provisions whereby copyright owners can submit takedown notices to all and sundry, and the burden of providing negative proof of copyright violation – providing negative proof of anything is an intellectual impossibility, by the way – is then on the website, which has to offer this proof within 5 days. This applies to any website which has user-submittable content, which includes Wikipedia. You uninformed jackass.

  • SomeRandomDude

    No, the point made by Wiki is a protest against SOPA, that’s why they blacked out. Now the people commenting have no clue what’s going on (Though its clearly stated on the Wiki page) and are in rage, thinking they shut Wiki down already. Wikipedia is just trying to inform the people of what’s going on. And SOPA isn’t just geared towards piracy, its geared toward ANY site with copyright information. So Youtube, Facebook, etc. will be shut down if SOPA was in play.

  • Georgelivesey

    Yes it does, no it doesn’t and it could be considered to be so…