Wikipedia joined a number of other websites by going offline for 24 hours in an attempt to protest against proposed anti-piracy laws in the US. Users see a black screen and a political statement: “Imagine a world without free knowledge,” but if you really need to access the website, just hit the ‘Esc’ key when you land on your desired Wikipedia page.

Wikipedia draws millions of hits every day but is staunchly opposed to the US Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) currently being debated by the US Congress.

Amongst those websites showing solidarity for the protest is the Huffington Post, and this morning the news aggregator tweeted blacked-out characters reminiscent of South Africa’s own protests against the Protection of Information Bill.

Tweets reminiscent of the Protection of Information Bill protests..

It’s thus far unclear how the glitch has managed to evade Wikipedia engineers, but it really is as simple as hitting the ‘escape’ key on your keyboard if you’d like to view a particular Wikipedia page.

All you need to do is hit it before the Wikipedia protest screen appears.

The proposed laws would allow the US Justice Department and content owners to seek court orders requiring search engines to block results associated with piracy and copyright infringements.

[Source: BBC]