ISU students depend on the Web. Google and Wikipedia, despite our professors’ protests, provide us with invaluable research. We use them to check facts, find the news and keep us updated. Their footnotes fill our pages and our free time.

We use the Web for research and breaks. It relaxes us with videos, stories and free games. Thanks to websites such as Reddit and Boing Boing, students are able to get through long lectures and late nights studying.

Our social networks revolve around the Web. It is easier to contact our distant family and friends thanks to sites such as Twitter and Facebook. They allow us to like and dislike groups of our choice, connect to new social networks and keep up in the fast-paced world.

So, as much as you use the Web, you may have already noticed that our favorite sites will be blacked out Wednesday. The sites Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing have all shut down as a protest to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Reddit and Boing Boing will be down for 12 hours starting at 8 a.m. and pushing through the long hours of lectures. Wikipedia will block its English content for 24 hours, so unless you’re fluent in foreign languages, we sincerely hope you don’t have a paper due Wednesday.

Google is the most-used search engine online. Its protest is not as dramatic as a shutdown, but its home page highlights the issue and make its protest clear.

Even sites such as Twitter, although not shutting down like Wikipedia or highlighting its site like Google, are joining the voice against the bill. Even though Twitter’s “not shutting down, [it’s] been very clear about [its] stance” on the issue.

The protest is an inconvenience to students. But as bad as this may be, a legal censorship would inconvenience students far worse. That is why websites are protesting SOPA, and that’s why students should stand the disruption and support the Web.

The language of the bill could shut down and censor American websites. Although an attempt to prevent piracy is noble, we believe Google was right in saying “there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet.”

Wednesday, you may not be able to use Wikipedia to help you in your paper and maybe you dislike what you see on Google’s home page, but it’s important to support their cause. Even if they provide a hassle for you today, it’s important to allow their use in the future.