Chinese To Switch Off Computers For The Day On July 1

A computer boycott is being organized for July 1 in China as a protest against mandated filtering software.

On July 1, millions of computers in China could remain switched off if a boycott being organized there is successful. The protest is against the mandatory Youth Escort Green Dam filtering software the government has said must be installed on all new machines sold from that date.

Reuters says that the boycott is being proposed by government critic and architect Ai Weiwei, who sees it as a way of voicing protest without the risk of retaliation.

Initially the government insisted all machines run the software, but they’ve since backed down to make it optional.