• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Kony 2012

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yup, glad Taylor deleted her tweet. I know someone who sent that to her and her team last night, whether or not she saw that and it had an influence on her decision, I'm glad she deleted her tweet. Not saying this guy shouldn't be stopped though, people should be speaking out to their government not this shady organization.

whats going on?? the link won't work
 
The logic of the internet has gone down so much because of this video


"Oh, you retweeted and shared a link about Joseph Kony? Tell me more about how you've always cared for Ugandan children "


have people gotten this stupid that, we are not allowed to share something if we haven't already cared about it?

Actually it's more:

"Oh, you retweeted and shared a link about Joseph Kony? Tell me about the further reading you've done on the topic- and more specifically, the organisation promoting it- to prove you're backing this cause because you actually believe in it and aren't just instinctively going 'NO BAD MAN I WILL STOP YOU'"

So yeah. No-one against KONY2012 is against the expanded knowledge of a situation, they're against those organising it all.
 
As terrible as the Foxconn situation is for the workers, they're not under the awful tyranny of Joseph Kony. You're comparing one awful set of working conditions to the exploitation and warfare involving children.
You are missing the point. People will only give a shit if it means they don't have to change their quality of life or give up luxurious items that only exist due to the exploitation and destruction of innocent people.
 
They should make an abridged video that removes all of the fellating of white people and shots of people using the internet.
 
So i've been speaking out against IC and i'm really getting hated on...


Thankfully i've bee getting people to agree with me so it's not all bad.
 
They should make an abridged video that removes all of the fellating of white people and shots of people using the internet.

The thing would only be about five minutes long.

So i've been speaking out against IC and i'm really getting hated on...


Thankfully i've bee getting people to agree with me so it's not all bad.

Really? Because (at least on my FB feeds/message boards), the anti-IC movement has gained about as much steam as the Kony video (In fact, the Visible Children post and The Daily What posts are outnumbering the video).
 
The thing would only be about five minutes long.



Really? Because (at least on my FB feeds/message boards), the anti-IC movement has gained about as much steam as the Kony video (In fact, the Visible Children post and The Daily What posts are outnumbering the video).

Apparantly most of my friends are idiots then.
 
As shitty as this is to admit, I'm neither here nor there on the cause. I'm following this because it has the potential to bring more power to the Internet than ever documented.

I want this to succeed because it would give a completely new level of legitimacy to a tool whose freedom was threatened by something as seemingly ridiculous as SOPA.

It also might hinder the average tween from using the Internet for Justin Bieber and rage comics rather than actual education. Even if the information is extremely biased with glaring undertones of White Man Burden, it's still better than some kid spending half an hour browsing Facebook or I Can Haz Cheezburger.
 
My Facebook feed is a catalogue of blind acceptance, it's quite worrying.

One slickly produced video, from an organisation they'd never heard of, which is making money from every single click on that video and every donation they get, which they just accept without question. Then share either from a belief in the cause, or just to not look less 'caring' than the people they know.

From looking into the organisation there are just too many questions here, their closeness to the Ugandan military especially who have their own catalogue of crimes.

Something doesn't seem right about this at all, and makes you think really. Imagine wartime propaganda played out over the Internet now, quite scary ...
 
I don't really understand the logic for being against it, aside from monetary issues and how and where the money is being spent.

At least it's raising awareness and people know about these kids now, who have been ignored for 25 years. Maybe something more will come out of it. Maybe not. But speaking out against it just doesn't sit right with me.
 
I don't really understand the logic for being against it, aside from monetary issues and how and where the money is being spent.

At least it's raising awareness and people know about these kids now, who have been ignored for 25 years. Maybe something more will come out of it. Maybe not. But speaking out against it just doesn't sit right with me.

The monetary issue is a big deal when an organisation supports a corrupt millitary, accused of many of the same crimes.

Their accounts don't add up, 70% of the money is going somewhere else. They've resisted transparency. Potentially just a scam for personal gain, at worst it could be putting more weapons in a region in the hands of a corrupt regime.

And in this age you don't even have to donate to this organisation to give money to them. You've already donated by clicking on the video, and by sharing it you've just multiplied that amount up by how ever many other people now click on it, and so on.

Many people still don't realise this, there's a lot of money to be made by something going viral. Let alone on this scale.
 
I swear to god this whole didn't exist until literally 2 hours ago and then it just blew up out of nowhere. It's as if somehow the internet just willed this whole scenario into existence.
 
I swear to god this whole didn't exist until literally 2 hours ago and then it just blew up out of nowhere. It's as if somehow the internet just willed this whole scenario into existence.

I've never seen anything like it, but then this is a slickly produced video designed to hit all the right emotional buttons to produce exactly this effect.

It's the blind-acceptance of it by so many when the organisation has legitimate questions about it that doesn't sit easy with me. Especially with the money that this must be raking in, directly through donations and indirectly through kickbacks from pay per view advertising.

I've seen so few people question any of it, it's like a fashion statement but they aren't even looking into what they are wearing at all.
 
I swear to god this whole didn't exist until literally 2 hours ago and then it just blew up out of nowhere. It's as if somehow the internet just willed this whole scenario into existence.

I started noticing it around this time last night, and by that point, it was already pretty huge. Funnily enough, that's also about the time the counter-arguments started pouring in and that got big in a hurry. This whole thing, if nothing else, displays once again the insane power of the Internet and social media. I'd actually like to know the exact time the video/campaign got started, I'd like to track how quickly it got so big.
 
I don't know if this has been posted yet, but Invisible Children has put up a page in response to all of the critiques that have popped up about themselves and Kony 2012. In it, they provide a lot of the information some people may have been looking for (i.e. finances, where the money goes, mission statements, their stand on Ugandan government, etc.)

Thank you for reading this and doing further research about Invisible Children and Kony 2012. In response to this explosion of interest about the Kony 2012 film, there have been hundreds of thousands of comments in support of the arrest of Joseph Kony and the work of Invisible Children. However, there have also been a few pieces written that are putting out false or mis-leading information about these efforts. This statement is our official response to some of these articles and is a source for accurate information about Invisible Children’s mission, financials and approach to stopping LRA violence.

Invisible Children’s mission is to stop LRA violence and support the war affected communities in Central Africa. These are the three ways we achieve that mission. Each is essential: 1) Document and make the world aware of the LRA. This includes making documentary films and touring these films around the world so that they are seen for free by millions of people. 2) Channeling the energy and awareness from informed viewers of IC films into large scale advocacy campaigns that have mobilized the international community to stop the LRA and protect civilians. 3) Operate programs on the ground in the LRA-affected areas to provide protection, rehabilitation and development assistance.

All of our organizational efforts and resources go to accomplishing those 3 goals. We have always split our energies and resources between international awareness & advocacy and programs on the ground. The allocation of our finances should be judged within that publicly-stated mission.
 
People on the internet are so obsessed with claiming things are fake or that there is a conspiracy or ulterior motive behind ANYTHING that claims to be doing good. Shits sad man, shits sad.
 
I don't know if this has been posted yet, but Invisible Children has put up a page in response to all of the critiques that have popped up about themselves and Kony 2012. In it, they provide a lot of the information some people may have been looking for (i.e. finances, where the money goes, mission statements, their stand on Ugandan government, etc.)

Hope this shuts people up for a bit, claiming fake without the right information at hand is stupid.
 
Even if the dude was pocketing millions of dollars, at least it's starting a discussion about the problem. Nobody else is doing it.

And come on, the CEO of the American Cancer Society takes home like $1 million per year. Where's the outrage there?
 
Hope this shuts people up for a bit, claiming fake without the right information at hand is stupid.

I'm glad they're being honest now, but they could've prevented a lot of scepticism by being transparent before they decided to go viral/massive with this.

That's just basic control of your image. When you go viral, you need to make sure your entire house is in order because the world will be looking for reasons not to trust you. If there are any gaps or things that could be misinterpreted, the world will twist those things into reasons not to trust you.
 
I'm glad they're being honest now, but they could've prevented a lot of scepticism by being transparent before they decided to go viral/massive with this.

That's just basic control of your image. When you go viral, you need to make sure your entire house is in order because the world will be looking for reasons not to trust you.

I've always found Invisible Children to be a pleasant organization to work with that does generally good work. They're not perfect, but no NGO is.

Even if the dude was pocketing millions of dollars, at least it's starting a discussion about the problem. Nobody else is doing it.

And come on, the CEO of the American Cancer Society takes home like $1 million per year. Where's the outrage there?

At the end of the day, this is what matters. Millions of people now know who Kony is, regardless of how well-oiled IC is an organization. This amount of awareness is any cause's dream.
 
At least they're providing information about an important issue to an audience that would otherwise be unaware.

Better to see comments about Kony on Youtube than the usual racism and insults directed at Justin Bieber.
 
So it's good?

No more need to criticize? If so that's good i'd much rather this turn out to be a good organization.
 
So it's good?

No more need to criticize? If so that's good i'd much rather this turn out to be a good organization.

They had to know their spending was going to come into question at some point. Hopefully this means that they stayed legit and didn't scrub the numbers in anyway.

I honestly just want a happy news story to come of all this, instead of a huge fuck up where the focus is shifted from Kony to a group that isn't what they say they were so Kony can keep doing what he does.
 
I sort of feel like shit now.


A couple people deleted me on Facebook because of my criticism.


I'm sure I made lots of people very angry.....


It's whatever I guess....

This has been a very heated day.
 
I sort of feel like shit now.


A couple people deleted me on Facebook because of my criticism.


I'm sure I made lots of people very angry.....


It's whatever I guess....

This has been a very heated day.

Yeah. Thats why you always stay on the fence until more information comes in. I told people I was skeptical and really wanting to donate. But for now I was going to hold off until more information came through.

I'm glad they responded so quickly.
 
They had to know their spending was going to come into question at some point. Hopefully this means that they stayed legit and didn't scrub the numbers in anyway.

I honestly just want a happy news story to come of all this, instead of a huge fuck up where the focus is shifted from Kony to a group that isn't what they say they were so Kony can keep doing what he does.

That's the other thing about all this though, I don't see how you can have a happy outcome. The situation in Uganda is far more complicated than how it is presented in that video.

A successful man hunt conducted by a corrupt regime who have committed similar crimes?

You just bolster them.
 
Yeah. Thats why you always stay on the fence until more information comes in. I told people I was skeptical and really wanting to donate. But for now I was going to hold off until more information came through.

I'm glad they responded so quickly.

Damn I was just spreading information showing I was skeptical of them.


I would never delete someone just because I disagree with them.
 
That's the other thing about all this though, I don't see how you can have a happy outcome. The situation in Uganda is far more complicated than how it is presented in that video.

A successful man hunt conducted by a corrupt regime who have committed similar crimes?

You just bolster them.

Obviously it isn't going to be a one and done affair, but this seems like something worth pursuing, especially if it really is just a matter of sending advisers there and not even our own troops.
 
I continue to be sceptical of their vague wording and incomplete description of what the money will be doing. Also, contradictions exist between their letter to Obama and their criticism-battling expedition: most prominently, why continue to work with the UPDF if their letter to Obama states explicitly that they can't enter the Congo?
 
I continue to be sceptical of their vague wording and incomplete description of what the money will be doing. Also, contradictions exist between their letter to Obama and their criticism-battling expedition: most prominently, why continue to work with the UPDF if their letter to Obama states explicitly that they can't enter the Congo?

I'm probably not donating but the more people who know and give a shit about what goes on in places like Uganda the better.
 
I'm probably not donating but the more people who know and give a shit about what goes on in places like Uganda the better.

Agreed, this is a good thing.

But there's just something not sitting right about all this. By simplifying it all, effectively Hollywood'ising it with that video, making Kony the focus there's almost an element of misdirection about it all.

The Ugandan Government is corrupt, the military guilty of exactly the same crimes. Get Kony, what really changes? You'd have a Government with a new found legitimacy, whilst the crimes and corruption carry on and the world's attention shifts elsewhere again.
 
I think it is really good how some of these people really reached and helped those in need. However I don't understand why they are so focused on arresting this one guy. I'm sure he is an incredibly evil warlord that should face justice. I just don't see the point in making it the focus of this all. Is the generic "help Africa" campaign not enough anymore to get people to do something? How will arresting one warlord change all the violence and civil wars that occur daily in Africa between all the militias and rebels?
 
Agreed, this is a good thing.

But there's just something not sitting right about all this. By simplifying it all, effectively Hollywood'ising it with that video, making Kony the focus there's almost an element of misdirection about it all.

The Ugandan Government is corrupt, the military guilty of exactly the same crimes. Get Kony, what really changes? You'd have a Government with a new found legitimacy, whilst the crimes and corruption carry on and the world's attention shifts elsewhere again.

This is my issue with the whole thing; Awareness is good, but not when it's misinformed and misguided.
 
my biggest issue with the video was that I felt like i was being marketed to, not being educated... It felt like a 30 minute infomercial program telling me why I should help spread their brand and buy their shirts and action kits and litter my city with their advertisements, while providing me with the minimal amount of facts.

I also hate how they put a time limit on the movement... ACT NOW, THIS DEAL WON'T LAST FOREVER!

Also, the whole celebrity angle seems really self serving...

The cause is just, and if you in fact care about this movement, maybe strike out with your own voice instead of literally buying into the movement you're being sold.
 
As others have said, this has gone insanely viral. I've never seen anything spread so rapidly; it's getting posted by a different FB friend of mine every other damn minute. What, exactly, is the purpose of this; to raise awareness/encourage the U.S. governments involvement, right?

Fuck that.

Seriously, in 2001, 90%+ of the U.S. supported the Bush operations in the Middle East. About 5 years later, the "let's get the hell out of there" sentiment became very strong, and now, over 10 years later, I constantly hear "the U.S. should stop meddling in foreign affairs" from (yes, anecdotal) many of my friends/co-workers. Then, this campaign starts, and all of a sudden everyone is supporting it to encourage the U.S. to not withdraw troops from Africa until this guy is caught and his regime crushed.

Sorry, I'm just raging. I'm 100% in agreement this douche needs to be taken care of, but I'm thoroughly pissed at all the suddenly 180-degree turning mofos I know that are ready to push the U.S. into another foreign war/situation despite being so strongly against the very same thing only 24 hours ago. I understand the conflict in Uganda is not the same as the conflict in Iraq/Afghanistan, but I still can't see these people as anything but hypocritical at this moment.
 
I just registered UDF2013 and UDF2014. I promise to send at least 50% of the money in medications, food and weapons for the new opposition.

At least it is nice that people are looking (hopefully) to real problems. Africa has tons of these.
 
As others have said, this has gone insanely viral. I've never seen anything spread so rapidly; it's getting posted by a different FB friend of mine every other damn minute. What, exactly, is the purpose of this; to raise awareness/encourage the U.S. governments involvement, right?

Fuck that.

Seriously, in 2001, 90%+ of the U.S. supported the Bush operations in the Middle East. About 5 years later, the "let's get the hell out of there" sentiment became very strong, and now, over 10 years later, I constantly hear "the U.S. should stop meddling in foreign affairs" from (yes, anecdotal) many of my friends/co-workers. Then, this campaign starts, and all of a sudden everyone is supporting it to encourage the U.S. to not withdraw troops from Africa until this guy is caught and his regime crushed.

Sorry, I'm just raging. I'm 100% in agreement this douche needs to be taken care of, but I'm thoroughly pissed at all the suddenly 180-degree turning mofos I know that are ready to push the U.S. into another foreign war/situation despite being so strongly against the very same thing only 24 hours ago. I understand the conflict in Uganda is not the same as the conflict in Iraq/Afghanistan, but I still can't see these people as anything but hypocritical at this moment.

I was under the impression we were just trying to keep our military advisers there to help their military with strategy. None of our troops are actually fighting... Is that incorrect?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom