Questioning Kony doesn't make you a baby killer

By Craig Regan

Unless you’ve been living under Uluru you’d know that a relatively low-profile, not-for-profit called Invisible Children is running a campaign to lift awareness of a murderous Ugandan warlord using YouTube as its main vehicle.

Now, this blog was going to be a Kony Free Zone but it’s an important public affairs and communications issue, so resistance seems futile.

The YouTube figures alone are amazing - 72 million “viewings” of the documentary in six days. It’s a long video by online standards which makes you wonder how many of those hits were for the full 30 minutes.

Facebook “likes” have rained down like Sydney’s dysfunctional wet weather. Links to the video, news articles and blogs have been passed around faster than a ticking package in a Middle Eastern market.

In communications terms, you can track the life cycle of almost every public affairs issue.

Given the right elements, media seize on a cause and drive its profile before a backlash sets in and its legitimacy is questioned.

For social media, simply increase the speed of the process many times over.

Weekend commentary expressed amazement that after initially embracing the Stop Kony campaign, so many people were questioning it.

To which you have to say: it’s the Internet, stupid.

Why not question something that rose from obscurity and seek evidence?  If you do, it doesn’t automatically follow that you support evil tribal gangsters.   

Invisible Children haveachieved one of their objectives of building broad awareness of their cause, even if most people are still light-on for detail. They've harnessed emotion and they've made millions of people feel empowered.

In public affairs, however, you need to go beyond bald metrics and look for results.

If the end game is stopping Kony by any means possible, the neutral but mildly supportive reaction from the US Government suggests a solution like that is already in the works.  

The question will be that if Kony is terminated “with extreme prejudice” will it be because millions of people clicked on a link on the Internet or because US covert operatives have been on the ground in Uganda for a long time?

If and when it happens, the scramble for the moral high ground will be frantic.