KONY 2012: The Internet Is Stupid

Zephos

Zephos

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So the internet has went ablaze with this little video:


A video about Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony and some sort of attempt to bring him to justice through an awareness campaign, conveniently buoyed by buying stupid bracelets and setting up posters. My Facebook has exploded with people supporting this thing and I'm quite strongly opposed to it. I'm tired of saying the same shit over and over, so these little counter points will sum up my position nicely:

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/03/08/why-you-should-feel-awkward-about-the-kony2012-video/
 
Thanks for posting this, extremely interested in seeing how it turns out. Any way to have the public directly determine what their government does, rather than a few non-representative assholes like our poorly elected officials, is a good way of doing things.

Also your links posses some absolutely moronic viewpoints and you should feel bad for agreeing with them.
 
I feel as if the government is aware and has already placed what it can on this situation however. There has been a despatch, there has been a weighing in the situation. The man is wanted by ICC/UN what have you. I'm interested as to what KONY 2012 plans to deliver in terms of anything further than this. From what I can tell their mission statement is rather unambitiously, keep those 100 troops in Uganda. I can agree with you that the public should more so directly determine what the government does, but this is a tricky quagmire of a situation, this is not simple foreign policy (not that any foreign policy ever is).

I'm interested in which parts of those links you find moronic.
 
Well, for instance, I laughed at this part of the first link:

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public.​

Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness​
Click to expand...

Considering their goddamned goal is to raise awareness, it seems this moron completely misunderstands the purpose.
 
I started watching this video on Wednesday and when the second scene began with a woman giving birth to sentimental music, I felt an uneasy feeling of audience manipulation. While I am completely certain that the cause is just, (and wish them all the luck in the world with doing some good) I can't help but feel strange about the video itself.

Even when I completely agree with something like this, I can't help but feel uncomfortable about the use of heavy emotional tactics to present factual information. It doesn't matter if you are a charity or a political campaign ad. It still feels cheap and patronising to me.

Now I understand this kind of thing is fairly common in documentary film making, (and in aid fund videos) so I can't simply dismiss such a widely used artistic tool set. But if you take someone like Micheal Moore for example, I almost always agree with the side he takes in his films, yet I am still dismayed by the ham-fisted way that he makes it impossible for the audience to do any decision making of its own.

The other issue is that there are a HUGE amount of problems in this world. Problems that deserve just as much attention as this does (again I really hope they make a real difference with this campaign) but it would be impossible in this world for all those issues to get the same level of attention. If every worthwhile cause in the world attempted similar campaigns week on week, it would become diluted and ineffectual over time.

While this may work today, it may not work tomorrow, and established systems of government and aid will continue to work through these problems in the only way they realistically can.

Just my view on the video. Hope the guy depicted explodes in a rain of quake era zombie gibs.
 
AMURCA! SAVE DA WURLD!

United Nations? Or Justice League Headquarters!!!!
 
I'm just curious to see if it works. The cause is a good one, but as you say, there's plenty of other causes that warrant such attention too. My interest is in seeing if enough people could possibly be motivated though online social media to stage a really significant nation-wide protest. Am I actually going to see Kony 2012 signs and posters on my way to work? If so, then this sets a good precedent for future efforts.

And yes, the video had an unsettling amount of propaganda tactics employed in it, but I dont think its necessarily maliciously manipulative. The video had less than 30 minutes to make you care about an extremely emotional subject. If it were like one of those dry British Documentaries we see a lot of, it'd have lots of information but no passion, and passion is what spreads the information quickly enough to allow something like this to even have a chance to work.
 
I should reiterate that I'm not against awareness of this issue at all. I greatly encourage this aspect of the campaign, since the passing over of foreign issues by our respective medias is absolutely disgusting. However, I was concerned that after watching a thirty minute video that has some degree of manipulation, many people without doing further research on this complex issue would pledge $30 to an organisation they know nothing about and going whoop de doo, I've saved the planet. There are complexities to it, and the fact that the group is now entirely focused on military intervention as a solution, even if it's status quo is just to keep 100 troops in Uganda whilst IC is in talks with its respective army, seems a dangerous minefield for uninformed teenagers to just throw their weight and dollars in with.
 
Do you know what the problem with trying to deal with a guy who has an army of child soldiers is?
 
I'm attending Cover The Night in Melbourne regardless, it should be fun and there is no harm in spreading awareness.

Also, this excites me how new-age technology has made something this massive. I've never seen Facebook more clogged with something, and it may as well be something good.

"When the going gets tough the cynics do nothing."
Seriously, what is the point in being cynical of this? Either it works or it doesn't. If it does, awesome - the world actually managed to achieve something, score one for new methods of communication. If it doesn't, at least everyone knows who Kony is now.
 
No guys, you don't get it, the goal is to raise awareness. It's literally propaganda.

Uganda has oil reserves of ~2.5 billion barrels, discovered in 2006, none of which can be accessed by Ugandan oil companies. Additionally, there are hundreds of warlords all across Africa doing exactly the same thing as Kony, this bloodshed and child trafficking and tribal tyranny has gone on endlessly for decades... and we pick specifically now and specifically Kony to deal with it. Right. I don't buy it for a second.

Jul3: There is no "either it works or it doesn't". It can't work. It's a 100% non-feasible solution to the violence problem. What's going to happen when Kony's killed or displaced? All the other warlords lay down their weapons? Child soldiers disappear from the continent? No. Nothing's going to meaningfully change because of this.
 
The idea that killing Kony or "bringing him to justice" would have any impact is laughable at best. It is a childish over representation of one man's role in a region-wide issue. The situation presented here is oversimplified in the extreme by IC and fails to account for the fact that organizations like this are self-sustaining. Cutting off the head will simply fracture the group and lead to infighting at best, and at worst Kony will simply be replaced by an underling. Power vacuums are always filled, and I genuinely doubt the Ugandan military has the manpower to do that.

What exactly the solution is, I don't know; I'm not an expert in foreign policy, but removing one man has never and will never fix an underlying problem with regional stability. We killed Osama, and we are further than ever from taking Afghanistan.
 
I don't know enough about the issue, but the fact that Kony's on the Most Wanted lists would suggest that, even if there's many, he's perhaps the worst of the bunch. It doesn't hurt to start somewhere.
That said, I haven't contributed anything to this, either monetarily or through publicity.

To me, the kind-of sad thing about this, is that the key to a successful human rights campaign is apparently flashy advertising targeted at college kids. Not that it's any different than it was in the past. It just makes me feel bad for equally good programs run by people without fancy schmancy graphics skills who plug more time into action than advertising. Even though Invisible Children's whole cause is awareness, one of the things you're advised to judge charities on is how much the board of directors takes as their salary cut. The Invisible Children guy doesn't have the worst offending salary I've seen, but he is living comfortably. At his age, I would think $60,000 would be a reasonably good salary, but his is 50% higher. In contrast, there are good charities that have several projects all over the world to help people produce drinking water filters, but where the program director is a 60-year-old dude working out in the field on less than a grad student's salary. That is a cause I'm more inclined to donate to.
 
I read about this long before this campaign,there is lots of warlords like these and they have been active from a long time,so I find kind of dumb that suddenly is know because someone made a facebook campaign thing

also if something happened like nato or the usa sending troops to catch the guy and his minions there will be people talking about "invasion" and "taking theyr oil" and stuff like that,and if nothing happens they will start talking about why no one do anything or blaming something else,so yeah I found it very dumb
also right now there is peace keeping groups in those areas mandated by the UN using soldiers from all over the world,however theyr main activity is just that peace keeping,they cant go and capture warlords and such cuz theyr manadate doesnt allow it,and we all know what happened in ruanda,so why not make a awareness campaign to change those laws and allow them to capture the bad guys? oh yeah "imperialism they are stelaings da oilz evil usa!" again.....
 
The US already has SOF advisors in the region looking for the guy.I don't see wtf is the point in raising awareness, I'm pretty sure the Hague know about him.
 
Seems like a rather extraneous piece of grandstanding. There are more current issues this NGO could have raised and there are other NGOs more deserving of support imo.
 
Oh God, not this again. My Facebook homepage has been alight with this all week.

I pointed out that even people in Uganda say it's misleading and outdated and I was told that I was horrible and that 32million+ people had viewed it on YouTube therefore it mattered and they were all making a difference for the good of the world etc.

No. All those people have clicked share because they've been told to and because emotional scenes coerced them into doing so, not because they've always given the slightest toss about Uganda and its issues. Joseph Kony was practically defeated years ago and was most active in the 80s-90s.

Here's an interesting post about it that I dug up, also.

ITT: Social Networking is Sheeple who don't research anything before blasting it around.
 
Its definetly pretty dodgy. They seemingly promote direct military intervention (which brings up a whole range of issues) and unquestionly support the "less bad" guys - the Ugandan Army arn't exactly angels. It also seems overly focused on military solutions rather than dealing with the underlying issues that have caused these problems in the first place.

Its also disturbingly neo-colonialist in tone, seeming to spread the idea that African's can't help themselves, without Americans/Europeans to sort thier problems they'll be able utterly helpless.
 
Bob_Marley said:
Its also disturbingly neo-colonialist in tone, seeming to spread the idea that African's can't help themselves, without Americans/Europeans to sort thier problems they'll be able utterly helpless.
Click to expand...
Western Society, as always, still considers itself to be World Police.

Don't get me wrong, though, it's nice that we all think JoKo is a nasty man and all but I'm pretty sure that most of us are just grossly misinformed about the current situation and the whole KONY 2012 thing seems a bit superfluous. Like going after a Warlord whose presence in Uganda has diminished is going to somehow sort out the country.

I'm not against people being aware of this part of history but as far as the whole pitchfork and torches thing going on right now about something that Ugandans seem to think is not a wide issue anymore... it seems silly.
 
I wonder if there are any people with a mental block against thinking about Ugandans-against-Kony2012 because they believe Uganda doesn't have an Internet connection?
 
Bob_Marley said:
Its definetly pretty dodgy. They seemingly promote direct military intervention
Click to expand...

Jesus, every anti-this-video post I see here or anywhere else is basing their argument against it on one kind of misinterpretation of it or another. You are wrong, and they EXPLICITLY said what kind of action they're promoting, and GUESS WHAT, it wasn't military actions. They want Ugandan officials to arrest the dude using the aid of US intelligence networks.

Also, when did hl2.net become full of "Well it doesn't solve every related problem, so why the **** doing anything?" idiots?

Hl2.net truely is dead. It died and came back full of braindead bozos. Ha, bozos. Havent used that word in a long time. Bozos.
 
And "liking" this on fbook is going to make the government do that, right? Or posting posters around town, yea?
 
Krynn72 said:
Jesus, every anti-this-video post I see here or anywhere else is basing their argument against it on one kind of misinterpretation of it or another. You are wrong, and they EXPLICITLY said what kind of action they're promoting, and GUESS WHAT, it wasn't military actions. They want Ugandan officials to arrest the dude using the aid of US intelligence networks.

Also, when did hl2.net become full of "Well it doesn't solve every related problem, so why the **** doing anything?" idiots?

Hl2.net truely is dead. It died and came back full of braindead bozos. Ha, bozos. Havent used that word in a long time. Bozos.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is weird, in light of the die-hard defense of the Occupy movement, which -in my opinion- was also bloated with BS, re: can we or can we not camp out in public spaces, stupid slogans, and flashy infographics in which Everything is compared to Teachers' Salaries. I know they are different and Occupy wasn't raking in money, but still, I don't understand how people are choosing which bandwagons to jump on and which ones to fling mud at.

Also, how the heck do I always take the unpopular side.
 
My main beef with it is that it's clearly pissing off Ugandans, the people it's claiming to help. Not massively productive in my view.
 
Dog-- said:
And "liking" this on fbook is going to make the government do that, right? Or posting posters around town, yea?
Click to expand...
It is indeed going to do that when said actions then lead to phone calls to congressmen and verbal expression of the will of the people.
 
I also like how when I search for 'real facts of kony' and many variations of that all I get are a bunch of people on message boards going 'yea Kony killed millions of people, abducts thousands of children, etc, etc.' where are these people getting these facts, from that video? Where did the video get the facts from?

I mean I know he's an evil person and everything, but where does everyone get their facts from I see NO sources ANYWHERE.
 
Krynn72 said:
Jesus, every anti-this-video post I see here or anywhere else is basing their argument against it on one kind of misinterpretation of it or another. You are wrong, and they EXPLICITLY said what kind of action they're promoting, and GUESS WHAT, it wasn't military actions. They want Ugandan officials to arrest the dude using the aid of US intelligence networks.

Also, when did hl2.net become full of "Well it doesn't solve every related problem, so why the **** doing anything?" idiots?

Hl2.net truely is dead. It died and came back full of braindead bozos. Ha, bozos. Havent used that word in a long time. Bozos.
Click to expand...


Ugandan officials? They want the Ugandan army, and that's my problem. Which of course is the only solution, but as it stands Kony is practically defeated and on the run. If anything, the Ugandan army itself poses more of a threat to the Ugandan people than Kony himself. Of course, Kony isn't entirely harmless, I won't argue against that, but even in Ugandan eyes it is definitely not the wider issue here. The people left in his wake are, and I don't think there's enough emphasis on this. I think Invisible Children donate a percentage of a third on rehabilitation? I'm not too sure, have to check it out. It doesn't sound like enough to me. Most of the awareness seems focused on capturing Kony, which I wonder what the effectiveness will be (if you chop off one head of the Hydra, etc). Misallocation of resources in my mind.

If people are unhappy that it doesn't solve related problems, it's because of Kony's irrelevance and diminished threat. There are perhaps other war criminals that right now need to be in the spotlight because they are of a great threat currently. Or one could draw their eyes to Syria where as of right now Turkey is actually asking for international support to help it out before everything devolves into civil war. Perhaps I just think that IC could have picked a more relevant target for all this.
 
^Hmm, interesting, thanks. In that case, yes it's pretty stupid to focus on this now. (Frankly I had not read through all the links here until I got home...)

I'll still give the guy some benefit of the doubt and assume he's been working on this so long that he's just become obsessed with finding Kony. The first time I heard of IC was not actually today, but about 6 years ago when my friend was walking across campus and someone ran up to him and asked "Do you want an Africa on your shirt?" and he was like "Uhhhhh," and they spray painted Africa on his t-shirt. So maybe when the filmmaker dude started this, it was actually relevant. Sometimes it is hard to let things go.
 
This shit has been going on Afirca for the last 60 years and now people care?
whatever.
The same shit happened in Chad and Somalia etc.
That chick is 100% right LRA is completely irrelevant now what is left of it is now in some remote part of the Congo.
 
Yep. Kony and his soldiers were forced to leave Uganda and as far as I remember they're scattered across jungles in Congo and very disorganised.

Normally I'd just pass it off as the internet being dumb but on this occasion, I find it kind of annoying that we've managed to annoy Ugandans by spreading misinformation about their situation, thus taking the focus off their real needs as a country.
 
Anyone else remember the whole WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF SOMALIA'S CHILDREN last year? Exact same style of bullshit.
 
As usual with these hypes, they avoid the real structural problems and focus on single issues. The very fabric of society needs to be transformed of men like Kony are to prevented from exerting power. It just seems like a cheap trick to get people heavily involved in a single, relatively simple, issue that does nothing to solve (or even address) the underlying causes. Nevermind that the video also ignores all the crimes of the Ugandan government and military, something that is just as big a problem as the guerilla groups.
 
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