Websites Go Dark Wednesday to Protest the Stop Online Piracy Act

If you plan to be online Wednesday, prepare yourself: Thousands of websites will go dark as many in the Internet community protest a federal law aimed at stopping online piracy. 

According to the Huffington Post, Wikipedia, Mozilla and the popular blogging site Wordpress will be among more than 7,000 websites that will make their content inaccessible to users in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The report indicated that search giant Google will change its home page, but will not go completely dark. 

HuffPo reports that movie makers and music producers support the bill, which is designed to stop copyright violations, but critics argue it goes too far and may interfere with free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment and "threaten the basic functioning of the Internet".

Patch and AOL, our parent company, are not participating in the blackout.

"As written, we cannot support the bills.  We believe an open Internet is critical for innovation, job creation, and the sustained growth of Internet businesses. We are in the process of working directly with lawmakers to improve the bills," Tekedra N. Mawakana, AOL's Senior Vice President of Public Policy, said.