User blog comment:Craiglpalmer/SOPA and PIPA Situation Summary/@comment-5476691-20120118032850/@comment-4625146-20120118034003

Nobody is killing any websites. Your confusion is due to lack of information, easily rectified by searching and reading relevant news articles.

What is happening is that site owners like Wikia, Wikipedia, and Reddit, and in the case of some of Wikia's wikis, contributors, are protesting two bills under review by the US Senate and House of Representatives, PIPA and SOPA, respectively. Some will be blacked-out entirely (blocking all access to their content), like Wikipedia. Websites that depend on traffic to their content for revenue (i.e. businesses) like Wikia are taking a less drastic approach by allowing content to be viewed after the protest statement/banner has been viewed by visitors.