The organisers of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia have warned web surfers that proposed legislation in the US may take us ‘back to the dark ages’ when it was necessary to pay to see womens’ breasts. Wikipedia is blacked out for 24 hours today in protest against the SOPA and PIPA laws currently being debated in the US Congress.
‘These laws won't be effective in their stated goal of stopping copyright infringement and they will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet,’ said Wikipedia founder Jimmie Wales. ‘Or to cut to the chase, they could mean that the only way to watch a Thai amputee fellating a dwarf is to fly to sit in a cabin smelling of used condom in the Red Light district of Amsterdam and hope none of the junkies nick your wallet first.’
PIPA and SOPA – which, contrary to articles posted on Wikipedia yesterday, have nothing to do with the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister's bottom or women with implants lathering themselves in a shower - aim to stop copyright infringement committed by websites out of US jurisdiction. According to Wales, however, they may actually infringe on freedom of expression while harming the Internet.
‘Do you realise what 'putting the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material' means? It means that if you want to make a mint out of selling a clip of two Brazilian women eating each other’s poo out of a cup you will have to watch it yourself first,’ warned Wales. ‘Do you want that? Because I don’t. Seriously, no, I don't.’
Added Wales: ‘Those who have grown up with an open, secure, and free Internet will no doubt take it for granted. But let me tell you, if you’d been a teenager in the 1970s and had never seen pubic hair except in a crumpled-up copy of Oui you found discarded in a hedge by your school or had to sneak down to your parents’ living room in the middle of a night and sit through two hours of cod-philosophising in a French art house film before finally getting a two-second glimpse of a fandango, you’d be as angry as I am right now … What? Oh, shut UP.’
