Congress had seemed ready to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, which aimed to fight foreign copyright infringement. Critics warned the bills would let the government and rights holders block entire websites and would expose platforms built on user content to crippling liability. On January 18, 2012, English Wikipedia shut itself off for 24 hours. Reddit went offline and Google covered its logo in black. Within days, supporters in Congress backed away, and both bills stalled.
The protest grew from the internet's own communities. Reddit was the first major site to announce a blackout for January 18. Wikipedia's editors debated what to do, and Jimmy Wales announced on Twitter that the English-language encyclopedia would go dark for 24 hours from midnight. Readers who tried to look something up that Wednesday found a black screen instead. It explained the bills and gave them a tool for finding and contacting their members of Congress.
The bills had strong support from the film and music industries and from sponsors in both parties, including Representative Lamar Smith and Senator Patrick Leahy. The day of dark screens turned a technical dispute into a mass political event, and phone lines and inboxes on Capitol Hill were flooded. Lawmakers who had co-sponsored the legislation began withdrawing their support within hours.
Two days later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a scheduled vote on PIPA, and Smith pulled SOPA from consideration. Neither bill ever came back. Wikimedia later estimated that 162 million people saw its blackout page. The protest became a model for online activism: the tech platforms themselves had shown they could mobilize their audiences against Washington.
Key people: Jimmy Wales, Lamar Smith, Patrick Leahy, Harry Reid