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[Kony 2012] Alert the Internet!
Posts
A pre-existing emotional investment in Africa is going to make someone more susceptible to advertising from non-profits, it's going to make them more likely to read international news articles that concern it, it's going to make them more likely to share this interest with the people around them.
You seem to believe that awareness itself does not lead to benefits, when it has been shown in the past to absolutely do so.
I also want to add that the Kony 2012 campaign doesn't actually have any outright lies or misinformation, all of the problems with it are due to misdirection or over-simplification. I honestly believe that someone who has gotten their idea of the political climate surrounding the area from the video will be responsive to being correctly educated to the nuances of the political situation.
EDIT:
That is to say, if they were a person who would be receptive to being educated about the nuances of the political situation at all.
The Red Cross are basically so colossally huge that organizational problems and instances of unethical conduct by their membership is basically inevitable.
But, this is sort of a problem intrinsic to people's attitudes towards NGOs. People become jaded towards trusting any group because all it takes is the bad conduct of some to make people suspicious of doing anything, paralyzed by indecision and doubt that any NGO is actually who they purport to be and are on the up-and-up.
This is where groups like Invisible Children are harmful to the operations of legitimate NGOs. Because when people's blithe ignorance and enthusiasm gets challenged by say, folks like me, the reaction of some is to just say "Well fuck it, then, Africa's just a mess and if I can't trust any group I'm not going to bother"
First World Defeatism.
ugh.
Bullshit and cite.
But I gotta ask, what makes, say, UNICEF better than Invisible Children? Either way you're giving money on faith that it'll go where it should, right?
you can also check the percentages of money going to the causes they purport to support, etc and on those measurements invisible children compare poorly
UNICEF is very accountable and transparent. There's criticisms of some moves they make and some decisions that they have engaged in that I feel are totally fair to have, but as a whole the organization is good and does good things and this can be supported and monitored.
Invisible Children are scam artists.
of all the "immediate relief" charities id say they are by far the best
Man's got a point.
Spare Scrolls for trade
then support Africa AHEAD, which is a sub-saharan Africa-specific hygiene, nutrition, and health charity that is pretty good.
It's downright disgusting how IC simply glosses over the problems with the Ugandan government and military, and argues that the US should support them with war advisers and materiel, simply because they're opposed to Kony - as seen here:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html
Seriously, how many times do we have to get fucked over by this idiotic "enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap?
- Soviets are bad, we better help Osama bin Laden!
- Iran is bad, we better help Saddam Hussein!
FFS, in 1996 American advisers were right in the middle of training Rwandan troops when Rwanda invaded Zaire (now named Democratic Republic of the Congo) and started genociding up the place.
The Ugandan govt/army are no angels. In fact, they do all the same things Kony's LRA is accused of.
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10521.pdf
WTF, IC can't have it both ways. If they're so opposed to child soldiers, then they shouldn't advocate helping the Ugandan military that uses child soldiers!
I wouldn't be surprised if the real story here is whatever it was that got this started, because I just don't believe a 30 min video that starts like that became this big thing on it's own without some help to reach the critical mass where you're now talking about how it became a big thing.
Or maybe it is just really well focused on it's target audience and doesn't translate well outside of the US?
Warchild's response is the only thing I've seen in my little corner of social media, though I read the Guardian articles first.
The Kony 2012 campaign claims to oppose the US of child soldiers, even as it advocates the US providing military aid to the Ugandan government, which uses child soldiers.
If that's not an outright lie or misinformation, what is it?
Two of the charities that were on the Givewell site last year are no longer recommended because your money would have less marginal effectiveness than donating somewhere else. That garners a whole ton of trust from me.
He totally has a point. I can absolutely say there's a measure of envy in my fury at IC, because I'd fucking love it if the charities I support and promote could get this kind of airplay. Mind you, I'm not shocked that Invisible Children have been successful. Of course they have. But then I've been sending emails to this effect up the food chain at MSF for a while now to get them to change their outreach programs and marketing.
That said, I have yet to see the proof in that pudding. Whether or not Facebook likes and retweets are actually going to result in a lasting growth for IC's efforts or finances remains to be see. I don't know how many retweeters are actually buying IC's "Action Kits" (jesus fucking christ I get mad writing that), but I don't imagine it's many.
So, while it's safe to say I'm annoyed at how swiftly and easily IC has captivated the social media for right now, compared to how say MSF struggles to self-promote, I'm not too envious because slacktivism rarely turns into activism and I have serious doubts that this buzz is gonna survive the next Rebecca Black for the attention span of the internet.
I was at a mock united nations assembly near the end of high school, at the beginning of which we listened to a speech given by a doctor from MSF. It was, without exaggeration, a moment that has stuck with me nearly a decade and a half later.
Tru ballas indeed. They're up there with Childs Play on my... whatever the opposite of a "shit list" is.
Well, I tell you what then. If IC accomplishes nothing else, what they've done is they just showed all the good charities exactly what they have to do to reach the audience they want to reach. That's something they can put to use for themselves later on.
or it fatigues the public about the issue and prevents them from consuming more legitimate media about issues in the region.
Or they watch the video, google up some of the background on it and find this thread. Then what?
I no longer believe it's really possible to accomplish anything serious by trying to 'fool' people into paying attention to your issue like this. Real, sustainable activism (whether that means volunteering or being a donor or just writing an amnesty letter) requires commitment, and sensationalist stuff like this destroys that every time. Plus, it feeds into a lot of the negative stereotypes about african/third world charity work.
The best thing you can say this video does is contribute to the vague western idea that africa is generally fucked up. But you know what? Western people have that idea already. It's ingrained enough in our pop culture that even if it stopped being actually true, you could probably get americans to donate to african charities.
dappled sunlight / strikes your butt
girl you got a / real sweet butt
:^:
I do think legit charities (MSF in particular, to put a fine point on it) need to work harder to embrace viral marketing type techniques and social media outreach
BUT!
They have to do it via legitimate information, non-sensationalist messages, and avoiding horseshit like "Click Like to help stop child abuse!"
You know, the hard way. Because that creates lasting revenue and support.
Nonetheless, there are lessons on what to do and not to do from Invisible Children. Mostly what not to do.
No, but it creates "issue fatigue", as noted above.
That's slacktivism's most dangerous poison.
At best, the Kony 2012 campaign serves as useful idiots by driving up popular support for American military intervention in Uganda - which just happens to have discovered massive oil reserves within the last decade.
Uganda is really about money. Just like Libya was. Just like Iraq was. All the talk you hear about humanitarian issues is a smokescreen.
The question is, can IC leverage this publicity into an actual good outcome for the people in uganda? Almost anybody is willing to momentarily change their facebook status or watch a youtube video. How many of those people (prepubescents, apparently) can you get to actually do something?
dappled sunlight / strikes your butt
girl you got a / real sweet butt
http://www.ikroh.com/seo-blog/2010/12/09/nspcc-facebook-meme-increases-awareness-donations/
Issue fatigue?
Cite.
That is not a cite that is a press release.
Winky, I'm done here, dude. I feel I've made my point. You're aggressively not getting it. I have nothing further to say, negative or positive, and you're not really interested in acknowledging the points other people are making, instead just repeating the same "BUT IT STILL DOES SOMETHING" point.
When you make a claim and I ask you to cite it, you quote a guy doing spin. I just... I give up, brah.
You carry on. You raise your awareness or buy your action kits or whatever.
I'm Cave Johnson and we're done here.
dappled sunlight / strikes your butt
girl you got a / real sweet butt
What? What the fuck does it even matter? The thing I was pointing attention to there was the twitter post where NSPCC described an "unprecedented surge in donations", that is clearly fucking fact! Did you want me to get you a link to their personal finances and cross-reference that against the cartoon character fad?
You're being ridiculous Pony, and you've erected a massive fucking strawman.
Do you have some disagreement with the general concept of issue fatigue, or as it relates to social media specifically?
dappled sunlight / strikes your butt
girl you got a / real sweet butt
My citation was concerning whether slacktivist awareness campaigns actually have beneficial effects.
The cite I asked for was whether you can show that people have "issue fatigue" due to awareness campaigns. Like, can you actually show that hearing about problems in Africa makes someone less likely to care about Africa?
That's an appropriate turn of phrase, given that Invisible Children's founders are, at the very least, in bed with the American evangelical missionary movement.
http://www.alternet.org/media/154477/kony_2012_leader_says:_it's_about_jesus,_and_evangelizing_
http://demandnothing.org/kony-2012-making-invisible-visible-part-2/
They're raising "awareness" through a campaign that advocates things they claim to be against. You can't vilify Kony for using child soldiers, and then turn around and advocate for more aid to the Ugandan army, when the Ugandan army also uses child soldiers.
I also find it confusing to give IC credit in any way for you donating to a worthwhile NGO, when that is specifically what IC is telling you NOT to do. IC doesn't say donate to all these other NGOs, they say to donate to IC.
It's like if I saw a Coke commercial and then read about how bad soda is for you, and quit drinking it. And then saying "Thanks for raising awareness about the health effects of soda, Coca-Cola!"
Having worked on-and-off with the ARC for a little while (doing mostly brain-dead customer service type stuff) I can attest to this.
They're well-meaning but just enormously bureaucratic and so many of the people I've met are well-meaning but small-minded.
There's this Swedish community. For many a year lots of people have had a "Copy this to your profile if you're against child porn! <link>" on their profiles. It's everywhere.
The domain linked to in the text has been expired for years. Nobody even clicks the link to check it out, because that's too much effort when you can just cut and paste some text to your profile.
Spare Scrolls for trade
I wouldn't click the link anyway because I don't want to accidentally click on child porn.
Especially now that the children are invisible. You can never be too careful.