It's not an outage or for maintenance related issue but Wikipedia already plan to blacking out their articles from million of researchers around the globe this Wednesday, January 17, 2012. The organization will join the other popular websites like Minecraft, Craiglist, and Boing Boing to show their protest again the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is now in United States House of Representatives.
This includes the Protect I-P ACT (PIPA) which is now on the Senate department which can also change the trajectory alignment of the web. According to report, the two bills can protect copyrighted materials on the line but different websites will extend its responsibility to impose the possible law in the near future.
And before we can forget, English Wikipedia will go offline from 12-midnight of Eastern Time to the next 24-hours. Other popular websites will also going dark at this moment.
In addition to this, it is good to hear that the White House is also listening to the cries of critics and interest people around the world. And they would like to maintain the freedom of expression and the innovative side of the line. Wikipedia is now up for their banner as a result of our searches, "The Internet must remain free."