Wikipedia, Google blackout sites to protest SOPA!

Wikipedia replaced article pages with this anti-SOPA message.

Three of the Internet's most popular destinations--Google, Wikipedia, and Craigslist--launched an audacious experiment in political activism this evening by urging their users to protest a pair of Hollywood-backed copyright laws.

Wikipedia's English-language pages went completely black at 9 p.m. PT, with a splash page saying "the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet." The online encyclopedia's blackout, intended to precede next week's Senate floor vote on the legislation, is scheduled to last 24 hours.

Craigslist and Google have taken a more modest approach. Unlike Wikipedia, the sites will remain online during Wednesday's virtual protest, but the home pages now feature exhortations to contact members of Congress and urge them to vote against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate version called Protect IP. Craiglist's snarky note: "Corporate paymasters, KEEP THOSE CLAMMY HANDS OFF THE INTERNET!" (See CNET's FAQ on the topic.)

It's a novel experiment in grassroots-outreach-by-the-millions that could, if successful, derail SOPA and Protect IP, which have come under increasing criticism since last fall. Their authors -- Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) -- responded in the last week byoffering some changes. But Smith said in a statement today that, one way or another, a House committee vote will be held in February.

CNET predicted the protest in a December 29 article that said opponents of the bills may "simultaneously turn" their home pages "black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress."

This is "classic Hollywood trying to do heavy handed legislation to protect its business interests," Casey Rae-Hunter, deputy director of the Future of Music Coalition, told reporters this morning.

READ MORE: CNET.com