Boston reacts to Wikipedia’s protest blackout

Like it or not, you’re going old school today.

The Web’s go-to information site, Wikipedia, will be blocked all day today to protest two pending anti-piracy laws.

“I think a lot of people will be upset because they didn’t know about it,” said Katie Elmore, 27, of Brighton, who uses Wikipedia to look up information on celebrities.

Wikipedia is joining a slew of websites including Facebook and Google, that are upset over two federal bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Internet Protocol Act, that would allow the government to shut down sites that might contain pirated material – something opponents say would have chilling effect on free speech. Neither Google nor Facebook has any plans to block their sites in protest.

But for Mina Tsay, a social media professor at Boston University, the Wikipedia break might be a breath of fresh air. She’s noticed a disturbing rise in the number of students who cite facts in research papers from the user-generated, not-always-accurate Internet encyclopedia.

“A lot of students cite Wikipedia, which is quite terrible, especially in academia,” Tsay said. “It’s something we don’t consider an academic source.”

Robbie Goodwin, 20, a film- writing major at Emerson College, looks up facts on Wikipedia using his smartphone in and out of class, including for research papers, saying it’s good for “cursory information” and “is a little deeper than an encyclopedia, which is cool.”

“At the dinner table, whenever there’s a fact nobody knows, I look it up on my phone and everyone thinks I’m really smart,” he said.

Wikipedia has 460 million visitors a month. A link to the site is often first to pop up when typing a question into a search engine, such as Google.

Fred Hapgood, 70, a retired writer from Brighton, said he donates $60 a year to Wikipedia. “I use it (when I) run into something that’s mysterious or unclear.”

Alex Clarke, 20, of Boston supports Wikipedia’s blackout decision, especially after the website Tumblr recently blocked out its content over the same issue. “It freaked people out.”

Nicco Mele, public policy lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said the piracy vs. censorship spat won’t end soon.

“This is just another installment in a very long war between the Internet giants and the Hollywood and cable giants,” he said.

Wikipedia plans to return at midnight.

Herald reporter Brendan Lynch contributed to this report.