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A growing conglomeration of high-profile tech companies is planning a silent but powerful protest against the SOPA legislation on January 18th. Websites like Reddit and Tucows, along with several video game developers, are planning to quietly take their websites offline to voice their opposition to the plan. Wikipedia and Google are also expected to join the congregation, but have not yet made any official announcement. According to Markus “Notch” Persson, Mojang will be adding their voice to the chorus. Persson, who is the brains behind Minecraft, posted several updates to his Twitter account that revealed Mojang’s plans for the protest. “We’ll silently take down http://minecraft.net and http://mojang.com on the 18th in protest of SOPA.” reads Notch’s tweet. The decision came after a few hours of discussion about how the developer should handle their particular protest. At first, it sounded like Notch was planning to make Minecraft free-to-play on the 18th, but when Rock, Paper, Shotgun pointed out that this might smack of self promotion, Notch agreed and began working on a new plan. With Mojang’s websites offline, gamers will not be able to play Minecraft online during the protest. 
The Internet might be a terribly boring place on January 18th. Hopefully the legislators will take notice. By Josh Engen |