The Day the Internet Went Black...ish...

This gif lovingly borrowed from The Oatmeal.
Please don't sue me.

So today the internet went black...ish. Some sites went down completely, others went down on first glance but provided workarounds to access content, and some slapped black bars on their logo but still worked perfectly.

It's all a response to SOPA/PIPA. I am in no way qualified to explain this, so I'll let Google do the talking:

1. SOPA and PIPA would censor the Web
2. SOPA and PIPA would be job-killers because they would create a new era of uncertainty for American business
3. SOPA and PIPA wouldn’t stop piracy

Obviously, there's a lot more than these three points, but in the interest of space (and assuming that you already read the diatribe) I'll keep it short. If your head was under a rock today, here's the full article.

Unfortunately, the internet was still in enough working order that (minus a few out-of-habit visits to Wikipedia followed by an immediate "Oh, SNAP!") I still had to work, so I did miss a few of the protest sites, namely Reddit. That aside, please enjoy this gallery of internet history.

Also, in a weird Catch-22 type way, should SOPA/PIPA pass in some form, this website is subject to immediate takedown due to a ton of copyright infringement in this post alone. Crap.

If you weren't one of the 4.5 million people to sign the petition today, you can make it happen with the banner below.