Wikipedia pages across Europe have gone dark today to raise awareness for the upcoming vote on the 26th of March on its controversial reform of copyright law.

The reform, which mostly contains much-needed updates to copyright law in the age of the internet, has sparked debate due to the inclusion of Article 13 that makes websites responsible for any copyright infringement from its users on its platform, and Article 11 which lets publishers charge websites if they link to their stories.

Supports of the articles say that it will give publishers and creators the opportunity to reclaim money from large tech corporations such as Facebook and Google, which have dominated the media landscape. However, critics have said that the articles go too far and claim it will harm free expression online, with Google going as far as to imply the laws will break the internet.

Volunteer editors that manage German, Czech, Danish, and Slovak pages, will block all their sites for 24 hours. Instead, it displays a banner explaining their argument for challenging the copyright reform and encouraging users to contact their Member of the European Parliament.

Other large websites, such as Pornhub and Twitch, have followed suit by displaying banners on their home pages. Reddit has taken a step further: when a user tries to post a link on the site, it is met with a “simulated error message” saying that the website would be unable to upload the post unless the user could prove they own the copyright to it.

As recent, unfortunate circumstances have made explicitly clear, it is seemingly impossible for tech giants like Facebook and Google to adequately police its platform for content that specifically violates its terms and conditions, let alone the mass of content that could potentially breach copyright laws.

However, it is also obvious that the current systems in place are already open to abuse, as demonstrated when a video of white noise uploaded to YouTube received five copyright claims against it.

As well as the website blackouts, more than five million people have signed a petition protesting Article 13, with demonstrations planned across Europe on the 23rd of March.