Why doesnt Wikipedia work

July 11, 2012 in the State Duma of the Russian Federation passed the second and third reading of the bill providing for the compilation of the list sites that must be blocked by all Internet service providers of the country. This way of protecting children from malicious information in Russian society has both supporters and opponents. It is natural that it is on the Internet, which administrative regulation of the proposed legislative changes are directed, its opponents are active in the greatest measure. One of the most high-profile protests was the daily self-blocking of Wikipedia section in Russian, which took place on July 10-11.

Technically, blocking access was implemented by including in the pages of the Russian-language section of insertion in JavaScript language. It redirected all requests to a page where the visitor, instead of the information sought, saw a banner with the word “Wikipedia” emblazoned abstract censor. Below it was the caption “Imagine a world without free knowledge” and an explanatory text linking to a page where visitors were asked to go to express their solidarity. To disable such blocking it was enough to turn off the execution of JavaScript scripts for Wikipedia site in the browser settings, but the organizers of the action did not report it.

This is not the first protest of this kind on Wikipedia. On January 18, 2012, the English-language section of the knowledge clade was blocked in a similar way. So the website expressed disapproval of two bills discussed in the US Congress – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). They too were aimed at regulating free speech on the internet. And on October 4, 2011, the Wikipedia section in Italian – then in the Italian Parliament passed readings of a similar bill – DDL intercettazioni.