Wow, most rapidly successful protest ever?
Just a couple of hours into the online strike against a proposed anti-piracy law, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla), a co-sponsor of the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (or PIPA, for humans), has pulled his support. Rubio is just the latest member of Congress to bail on the legislation. Which is much to the chagrin of content-creation baron and cranky billionaire Rupert Murdoch:
https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch/status/159425611000057856
Meanwhile, AP is running an article about the most high-profile strike participant's disabling of itself: "Wikipedia editors question site's blackout."
Wikipedia's English-language site shut down at midnight Eastern Standard Time Tuesday and the organization said it would stay down for 24 hours...
It is the first time the English site has been blacked out...(S)ome editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site's decision to fighting censorship with censorship.
One of the site's own "five pillars" of conduct says that Wikipedia "is written from a neutral point of view." The site strives to "avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them."
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.
If you're really panicked about not being able to access the Big W today, you can find on this page an easy-to-use bookmarklet that will unblock the site, which we were tipped off to via Gawker.