This bill has been around for months, but everyone all of a sudden cares today. Why? because Wikipedia and other sites are blacked out. That's right. In our society, people only care about stuff when it directly affects them.
On the contrary, most online users have been defending and petitioning for months now. The reason for the sudden increase of activity is because the bill is going to be voted on the 24th of January. This is a final attempt to raise awareness that if it is passed, it won't actually bring any good to the Internet.
I posted information about it on Facebook months ago and nobody seemed that concerned. I was the only person to post anything about it to date. Yesterday, my news feed blew up with tons of people (especially casual internet users) that were all of a sudden hardline, head-over-heels against this bill. Which most of them probably only found out about yesterday. It's true man. You know it. People don't give a shit unless they are being affected on a personal level. Wikipedia blacking themselves out was probably the best thing that anyone could to fight this bill. Kudos to them.