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…

…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.”