Join millions of compassionate citizens throughout the world for the 1st Annual “Blank Screen Day” on Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 12 noon Pacific Time.
As part of the global effort to conserve the Internet, Southern California think tank The G.I.V.E. Initiative (Global Internet Values Everywhere) is encouraging citizens everywhere to switch off their internet for one hour Thursday to help share precious internet bandwidth with the people who most need it.
“Americans comprise less than 5% of the world's population, yet use more than 25% of the world's internet capacity,” said Coco Westhaven, Executive Director of G.I.V.E. “What better way to welcome emerging people to the global conversation by giving them the floor for just one day?”
Westhaven says research at MIT shows that the Internet is dangerously close to capacity. “People in the developing nations who are eager to join the global conversation and the international marketplace are never able to get online,” she says, “while others are sucking up all available bandwidth playing online poker and checking out cute pet videos.”
Counterintuity, of Burbank, CA has pledged to observe Internet silence all day long. “You don’t need to go to such extremes,” says Lee Wochner, CEO. “Any one hour of going offline during normal business hours will help. Think about it: An hour of your Internet silence could help a fashion-starved villager get through to Saks.com.”
For complete information or to organize a Blank Screen Day in your area, go to www.blankscreenday.org.
