XDA to Go Dark on Jan 18th at 8AM; You Can Help Bring Us Back Online

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XDA is a community built on openness and sharing. It has flourished because of our ability to freely exchange information, ideas, and development. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the Senate and Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the House give copyright holders the ability to more easily shut down sites (with mere accusations and without due process) that *might* be in violation of copyright laws. It was because of GoDaddy’s initial support for this legislation that we moved to another registrar. If you are unfamiliar with the particulars of the bills, read up on them on Wikipedia.

We had a long debate among admins and moderators about the best way XDA can combat this legislation. Several sites (most notably, Reddit) have decided to go dark on January 18th from 8AM to 8PM. A blackout of XDA, a site with users likely already educated on the legislation, seemed a bit like preaching to the choir.

Quite frankly, we don’t think a blackout is enough. We need to motivate XDA members to get involved and help us fight the fight. So– beginning at 8AM ET on January 18th, the xda-developers.com domain WILL go dark. When you come to the site, you will see links to information about SOPA and the damaging impact it will have on the free Internet. Visitors from the United States will also see a link to an online pledge. Users who choose to sign their name to the pledge are agreeing simply to contact their local Senator or Representative (via phone or email) and politely voice their opposition to the bills. Once 50,000 people have made the pledge, XDA will go back up. We will provide links to help you find the contact information for the appropriate member of Congress. We hope we hit 50,000 pledges quickly. If not, we’ll match Reddit (and hopefully many other sites) and return online at 8PM ET.

If you want to get involved (before our “pledge” goes live on the 18th), Reddit has a fantastic list of ways that you can make an impact. We hope that XDA going dark will help spread awareness and action against SOPA / PIPA.