Google censored its own logo on Wednesday to protest controversial anti-piracy bills Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP (PIPA).
Google is known for making whimsical changes to the company logo to, as Google writes, "celebrate holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists." But this time, the search giant is using its homepage logo on Google.com to make a political statement. which The New York Times reports that the Google home page receives over 1 billion page views per month.
In what resembles a strip of black tape used in movies and TV shows to silence hostages and prisoners, Google has almost completely obstructed its famous logo -- only bottom curve of the "g" remains barely visible under the redaction graphic.
When a user clicks on the black strip, he or she is taken to a page with more information about SOPA and PIPA. Additionally, the user can sign a petition that opposes the proposed bills and sign up to receive updates.
While Google said on Tuesday that it would participate in the protest against SOPA and PIPA, the search-giant's plans weren't clear.
"Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," a Google spokeswoman said in a written statement to HuffPost on Tuesday. "So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page."
Google is just one of many high-profile websites to protest the proposed legislation. Wikipedia and Reddit, the latter of which is credited with proposing the January 18 strike, will be unavailable for all or part of the day.
Take a look at Google's "redacted" logo (below).
Click here to read more about the controversy surrounding SOPA and PIPA, and read on to learn about more websites that are protesting these bills on January 18.
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