Digital Life Sacrifice

I was just informed that Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, Ryan Seacrest, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Elijah Wood, Serena Williams, Janelle Monae and a handful of other celebrities will sacrifice their digital lives in the name of charity.  This will begin on December 1st, 2010 and will continue until the celebrities demands are met.

Translation: These celebrities will sign off of Twitter until one million dollars is donated to Alicia Key's charity, Keep a Child Alive.

I have a couple of questions:
1. Does anyone else feel like this is a poorly written ransom demand? I half expect to receive a crumpled piece of paper with cut-out letters from a glossy magazine.

2. Does it strike anyone else as glaring that, for the majority of these celebrities, 1 million dollars is a drop in the bucket? Heck, if everyone listed donated a couple hundred thousand, the goal would be met?

3. Is it really telling of our reliance on the digital world that it's considered a major sacrifice to not have your celebrity online? For these celebrities to hold their websites hostage until people pony up the money for their charity? And, to be a celebrity and NOT to have a Twitter is completely unacceptable?

Now, I'm sure that the charity is wonderful, and it does a lot of good work. I respect Alicia Keys, and I'm sure she's made a lot of personal financial sacrifices to her foundation. I'm just wondering about this whole idea of bullying fans into donating to your cause.

I donate money out of every paycheck, but I do it to the charity of my choice, which is RAINN. Occasionally, Sea Shepherd gets a hit, too. But these are the causes that I believe in, and I don't have an unlimited amount of funds to go around, so I have to be picky where my donations go.

Honestly, I'm probably less likely to donate to Keep a Child Alive in the future because of these tactics.

I'm curious how everyone else feels about this?