Celebrities including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher have joined a campaign to abstain from social media from 1 December until $1m has been raised for US charity Keep a Child Alive.

The Digital Life Sacrifice campaign aims to raise $1m for Keep a Child Alive, which works in Africa and India to provide treatment and support to families of people with HIV and Aids. The campaign will launch on Wednesday to mark World Aids Day.

Singer Alicia Keys is co-founder and global ambassador for the charity whose social media embargo campaign will see the celebrities swearing off digital applications like Twitter and Facebook until the campaign reaches its fundraising target.

The campaign will use “last tweet and testament” videos filmed by the celebrities, according to reports in the Associated Press, which will depict Gaga and Co in coffins in a bid to emphasise the dead serious message of the campaign.

Leigh Blake, president and founder of Keep a Child Alive told the BBC, “We’re trying to sort of make the remark: ‘Why do we care so much about the death of one celebrity as opposed to millions and millions of people dying in the place that we’re all from?’”

Keys has championed the campaign across Facebook and the celebrity Twittersphere once again paying testament to the strong influence that celebrities can have on viral charity campaigns as demonstrated by the twitter charity fundraising carried out by Hugh Jackman and Stephen Fry in 2009.