Twitter slams Wikipedia's 24-hour shutdown

London, Jan 17: Reacting to

's decision to "go dark" on Wednesday, Jan 18, popular micro-blogging site Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo lashed out at the online encyclopedia's move calling it 'foolish' and 'silly'.

Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular online encyclopedia websites, has confirmed that it will shut down its English site for 24-hours on Jan 18 in protest against the contentious US online piracy bill namely the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP (PIPA), aimed at fighting online piracy.

In a statement, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder said, "today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition to this destructive legislation. This is an extraordinary action for our community to take – and while we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that Sopa and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

Meanwhile, the online encyclopedia which is the sixth most popular destination on the Internet attracts 25 million visitors a day.

OneIndia News