Ah Tumblr, we can always rely on you to add your crazy.

Yesterday, the internet was all about Invisible Children’s #stopKONY campaign and video, but while Americans get themselves into a froth about a country they don’t even know the location of, and a man they only know through rumours, we take a closer look at the organisation behind the hype, and as a number of commentators look closer, the cracks in Invisible Children’s premise, promises and their presentation become anything but invisible.

Even Diddy saw fit to weigh in to the melee

By midnight last night (African time) Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr (among others) were just bulging with re-posts, re-tweets and shares of the video, as well as celebrity endorsements of Invisible Children’s message to #StopKONY. As an exercise in viral marketing and awareness-raising, it surely counts as a master class; oh, and don’t forget the ubiquitous pleas for donations to Invisible Children so they can continue making videos about their various causes. Like. Share. +1. Sorted, right?

But on the sidelines are the critics of Invisible Children, the ones who question their methods, criticise their motivations, and wonder quite correctly at the idea of arming a military force to go find and kill or capture a man who has, and does, use children as shields to protect himself, and who has eluded capture by several nations’ forces for years. It is not just Invisible Children that are seeking an end to Kony’s reign of terror, even the White House re-affirmed its commitment to sending personnel and equipment to involved nations’ active in the search for Kony and his hardy band of thugs. Is Invisible Children’s campaign an effective method of curtailing Kony and the threat he poses? They clearly have a message to sell, but are they presenting all the facts as such?

The Invisible Children crew pose with the Sudanese Liberation Army and their foreign-financed weapons. That’s Blue Steel right there.

Don’t get me wrong, no-one is disputing that Joseph Kony and his Lords Resistance Army are very bad news, especially in terms of the health and welfare of the thousands of families and communities that their slaughterous rampages through the Central African jungles displaced, not to mention the roughly 30 000 children that the LRA have abducted, indoctrinated, killed and abused over many years of activity in that area.

But there are clear discrepancies in the available information on Kony and the LRA, and what is presented as fact by Invisible Children in order to provoke a response from the millions who watch their material. For one, Joseph Kony is no longer in Uganda, and the LRA has been in decline for several years now. The children are still at risk, particularly those who now crowd the streets and cities of several countries in the region, no longer part of anyone’s war, and destitute. Is Kony the problem, or is it the scattered and incoherent political will of assorted governments to try to deal with him; or the badly organised, trained and patently corrupt security forces that are provided with foreign funding and weapons in order to deal with a problem that most of them have a completely different take on?

The fact remains that while supporting Invisible Children, buying their merchandise, clicking their links and spreading their doctrine might seem the responsible and justified thing to do from where we sit, it is also important to take a little time to see what exactly you are supporting, and assess whether they are in fact doing what they claim to be doing. There is more relevant information here than what they chose to show you in that glossy 30 minute video.

It’s not for me to make up your minds for you, but I can suggest you take the same amount of time you spent watching that video, and spend it reading a little more about Invisible Children, Joseph Kony and his LRA, and the various international efforts to bring him to justice. Here are some worthwhile links, among many, that provide a good start for finding out more:

• An article from last year looking at Washington’s efforts to combat the LRA. [here]
• An American student who is a critic of Invisible Children and their StopKONY campaign and runs a blog about it. [here]
• Invisible Children’s response to their critics. [here]
• A commentary on the campaign from a well respected journal, Foreign Policy. [here]

As always, Tumblr has the final word

[Source: Visible Children, Foreign Policy]