On Wednesday Wikipedia and other websites are staging a 24 hour blackout to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation in Congress, and protesters are lining up outside the New York City offices of U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY.) to publicly display their opposition.
The protesters are being lead by New York Tech Meetup, a group of more than 20,000 tech enthusiasts in New York that started in 2004.
New York Tech Meetup is backed by Meetup, a worldwide network of local groups with over 9.5 million members that makes it easier for activists in communities to work together to get their causes heard.
The group is hoping that the protest outside of Mr. Schumer and Ms. Gillibrand’s offices will influence the two New York senators to vote against the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that is currently up for consideration in the Senate.
The SOPA blackout that Google and Wikipedia are currently participating in is protesting both PIPA and the Stop Online Piracy Act that is up for consideration in the House. The SOPA act has pitted the tech community against Hollywood, as entertainers and studios are wary of pirated materials of their intellectual property that are constantly uploaded everyday on the internet.
The Wikipedia SOPA blackout is the most visible online protest, as internet users who attempt to use the online encyclopedia on Wednesday are instead shown a message from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales about the freedom of online content.
“What is at stake is the ability of New Yorkers to freely participate in the 21st century economy,” said Andrew Rasiej, chairman of NY Tech Meetup, in an interview with New York Daily News Wednesday.
According to their website, the NY Tech Meetup group is coordinating with the New Jersey Tech Meetup group to set up a protest demonstration outside of Mr. Schumer and Ms. Gillibrand’s Manhattan offices for two hours on Wednesday.
New York City was hit hard by the recession in terms of job loss, and the NY Tech members claim that new technologies and new uses of the Internet have inspired “tens of thousands of New Yorkers” to create thousands of new tech based jobs in New York.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for the entire state of New York as of November was 8 percent.
New York City Democratic Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been supportive of trying to create more technology based jobs. In recently months Mr. Bloomberg has taken to his Twitter account to voice his support for groups like NY Tech Meetup. He was also supportive of Facebook opening a new engineering office in New York.
Neither Senator Schumer and Gillibrand have commented on the planned SOPA/PIPA protests that will occur outside of their offices Wednesday.
However, Mr. Schumer recently tweeted his support to opposing Internet censorship while still controlling online piracy.
“Sen. Schumer has met with many from the tech com and will work to keep their concerns balanced with ip theft,” said Mr. Schumer via his Twitter account last week.
In addition to Wikipedia and Google, other popular websites observing the 24 hour SOPA blackout on Wednesday include Reddit, Mozilla and WordPress.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wants his committee to take a vote on the SOPA legislation in February, The Hill reports. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV.) reportedly wants the Senate to take a vote on the PIPA legislation next week.
