Now this is a viral video

**jah_yout** · 03-09-2012, 09:12 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">
What does 30 years and post-Idi Amin have to do with the current topic - a viral video?</span></span> </div></div>

that viral video is about the longest ruling leader of uganda since amin..(.he's been in power around 25 years)---his enemy joseph kony- -- so it has everything to do with the topic---
joseph kony and his LRA atrocities can not be seen in a vacuum...historical context is necessary

**Tuff Gong** · 03-09-2012, 09:14 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i didn't support anyone...i don't have an army, air force or navy; </div></div>

You are a misremembering!
</div></div>

says you...
so you are opposed to kony? does that mean you support museveni?
then you are aware that museveni has had troops in somalia for a while now...and that al shebab bombed uganda because of this...do you support museveni's troops presence in somalia?
you are also aware that the african union is in somalia...
and that even kenya has invaded somalia...
so either several countries in the region feel uncomfortable with a government-less somalia controlled by an extremist radical group or all the countries in the region are US puppets </div></div>

Didn't we discuss/argue over this years ago?
This is what I am referring to.
You posted the about the invasion and, you supported it then.
The matter is not whether or not i support one Warlord/Brutal Dictator over another or even whether I support the video.
I am attesting to the impact of the video and the Org that made it and accepting that may be another route to bring similar kind of pressure to bear on the murderous Jamaican State.

**Derek** · 03-10-2012, 12:30 AM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">
What does 30 years and post-Idi Amin have to do with the current topic - a viral video?</span></span> </div></div>

that viral video is about the longest ruling leader of uganda since amin..(.he's been in power around 25 years)---his enemy joseph kony- -- so it has everything to do with the topic---
joseph kony and his LRA atrocities can not be seen in a vacuum...historical context is necessary </div></div>
Hmmm...

I thought the video was about a guy who is creating child soldiers, raping girls and orchestrating murder.

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:06 AM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">
What does 30 years and post-Idi Amin have to do with the current topic - a viral video?</span></span> </div></div>

that viral video is about the longest ruling leader of uganda since amin..(.he's been in power around 25 years)---his enemy joseph kony- -- so it has everything to do with the topic---
joseph kony and his LRA atrocities can not be seen in a vacuum...historical context is necessary </div></div>
Hmmm...

I thought the video was about a guy who is creating child soldiers, raping girls and orchestrating murder. </div></div>

yes and that guy is joseph kony...who is the rebel leader of the lord's resistance army of northern uganda which has fought against the president of uganda, museveni, for at least 2 decades...and some of the atrocities he is accused of have been practiced by museveni's government troops over the years as well;
this is not so black & white cookie-cutter as this film propaganda machine would have one believe

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:10 AM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: RichD</div><div class="ubbcode-body">what is amusing is dat him a sey dont believe everything yuh read i the media a use media Quote to support his contention </div></div>

it's all media...one must naturally discern and check additional sources...
even the ugandan guy you quoted or paraphrased who called up the radio station-- that is media too...
didn't he say joseph kony was being used by museveni for his own purposes?

well that media you quoted contradicts the "joseph kony is the devil" simple angle of this film

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:12 AM

Re: Now this is a viral video

speaking of viral videos from uganda...ugandan dancehall

<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sHZqjFAPKfo"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sHZqjFAPKfo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>

**Tuff Gong** · 03-10-2012, 12:55 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<span style="font-weight: bold">Invisible Children's Real Achievement: There May Never Be Another Rwanda</span>.

<span style="font-style: italic">{Disclosure: I am Chairman of Better World Books, a company that has proudly partnered with Invisible Children on nationwide book drives for literacy)</span>

They say there’s no such thing as an overnight success, and that is rarely truer than in the case of Invisible Children. Like a journeyman singer/songwriter that suddenly hits #1 in the charts, Invisible Children is no doubt overwhelmed by their newfound fame after a decade of hard work barnstorming the nation telling the story of abducted children that the world forgot. They set a goal for their newest video, “Kony 2012”, to reach 500,000 people in 2012. Through the magic of social media and a legion of true believers, it reached a Lady Gaga-esque 52 million people in the first four days.

Like the journeyman musician now accused of selling out by “going pop”, Invisible Children is coming under a withering storm of criticism from the largely anonymous forces of cynicism that lurk on the Internet. Some make valid and fairly reasoned criticisms, others seem as though they whipped up their critique after five minutes on Wikipedia. The most valid critiques in my mind are that Invisible Children simplifies a complex situation, is emotionally manipulative, and advocates a military solution. Yet simplicity and emotional engagement is exactly what is needed to engage the hearts and minds of people. Knowing the depth of thought that the organization has given to the issue of Joseph Kony’s continued reign of terror, and the disappointments they’ve had at peace talks which Kony used as a cover to rearm, I agree with them that the solution to this problem will not be found at the mediation table.

This wave of criticism will largely wash past, drowned in a sea of enthusiasm from supporters old and new. But watching this phenomenon from a distance, it struck me that there is something much bigger going on here, and it led me to a startling realization. There may never me another Rwandan genocide in the age of Invisible Children. Let me explain.

I was an idealistic 15 year old in a small town in Minnesota in April 1994 when the first killings in Rwanda began. Though I had never left the USA & Canada, and only had a limited understanding of the situation through the news reports that filtered out, I knew something was horribly wrong. I was repulsed that genocides were not something from the history books but something that was happening in the present. I knew intuitively that the USA could stop it in a day if it cared. I knew the morally right thing was for my country to do whatever it could to make the genocide stop. But I didn’t know how I could make my voice heard. I didn’t know how to connect to all the other people who may have felt the same way I did. So I did nothing. As I walked the streets of Rwanda for the first time last summer, I felt intense shame and regret both personally and on behalf of my country.

And in the halls of Washington the ideas of Realpolitik ruled. The USA didn’t have oil or treasure at stake, and Bill Clinton couldn’t risk another Black Hawk Down. It may have only taken as few as one US helicopter touching down to demonstrate to the killers that the US cared and would intervene. But it could not be risked. So the country’s conscience was silenced and the blood of 1 million Rwandans was spilled.

Imagine Rwanda happened today, in a post-Kony 2012 world. Whether Invisible Children took up the cause, or whether an organization equally as talented and creative came together, a recipe and precedent has been established that can arouse a nation’s morality. Through a cocktail of video, social media, and concrete action steps, millions of people can be brought together as one to express outrage and demand that their governments act. What Invisible Children has proved is what we all knew: The vast majority of Americans, especially the country’s youth, want the USA to be a force for good in the world. This includes using the country’s diplomatic and military muscle for saving lives, not just protecting access to oil.

Once the nation’s morality has been aroused about an issue of right and wrong, it transcends right or left. Doing nothing no longer becomes an option for any politician that has to face their constituents and even their spouses and children. Everyone is asking, “What did you do about Rwanda?” As I write, nearly every politician in the country is likely asking themselves a similar question: “What can I do about Joseph Kony?”

**Tuff Gong** · 03-10-2012, 01:42 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<span style="font-weight: bold">After Kony, could a viral video change the world?</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">John Naughton
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 10 March 2012 11.38 EST</span>

Kony 2012, the video campaign raising awareness about child soldiers in Uganda, is a world away from previous YouTube hits involving children, animals and popular-culture pastiche.
The mainstream media were transfixed last week by a meme – an infectious idea. Hard-bitten news editors – the professionals who pride themselves on knowing what will happen before it happens – were discomfited to discover that their teenage kids knew something they didn't know. That something was a YouTube video that had been spreading at an astonishing rate. Entitled Kony 2012, it is a 30-minute film made by a campaigning organisation called Invisible Children.

Its goal was to raise awareness of the activities of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who leads the Lord's Resistance Army, in the hope of bringing him to justice. Kony and his LRA are distinguished by their violence and brutality, their weird ideology and – crucially for the purposes of the video – their practice of abducting children and turning them into child soldiers. This last practice has led to the bizarre phenomenon of "night commuting", in which Ugandan children leave their villages at night in order to sleep in towns, where they are supposedly less vulnerable to kidnapping by Kony and his goons.

Invisible Children is a US-based campaigning group, founded in 2004 by film-makers, which has been working in Uganda – building radio networks, monitoring LRA movements and helping displaced children and families.

It has focused on raising awareness of the LRA and on influencing US government policy towards the region. It is believed that its campaigning was at least partly responsible for Barack Obama's decision in 2010 to send 100 military advisers to the Ugandan military to assist in capturing Kony.

The YouTube video is a brilliant piece of film-making, in two ways. First, it has a compelling, simple narrative: Kony is a really bad guy and his capture will end suffering for the people of northern Uganda. If US viewers do their bit by influencing their politicians, the world's superpower will take action and Kony will be captured.

Second, it conveys this message in a seductive way, with film-maker Jason Williams explaining to his five-year-old son that this Kony is a monster and that dad's job is capturing him. What's not to like?

Jason's message was released last Monday. By Thursday it had amassed 26 million views. When I last looked at it on Saturday it was up to 63 million views (with 1,212,109 "likes" and only 59,702 "dislikes&quot

. So, in the jargon of the day, it's "gone viral". In that sense, it represents the most successful manipulation of our new media ecosystem to date because "virality" is what every huckster, politician and advertiser now craves – but very few achieve.

Viral dissemination has been a feature of the internet almost from the beginning, but the deliberate exploitation of it dates from Independence Day in the US in 1996, when Hotmail was launched by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was the first "webmail" system (allowing people to send and receive email using an internet browser) and its makers had the brilliant idea of appending a footer to every message sent stating that it had been sent by Hotmail and inviting the recipient to "get a free Hotmail account" at www.hotmail.com.

Viral dissemination received a really powerful boost with the launch of YouTube in 2005. Thereafter, people were able to post striking, amusing or daft videos online and the service made it easy to "share" anything that viewers liked. This is what led to the LOLcat explosion and the astonishing viewing totals for charming videos like Charlie Bit My Finger, which has been watched more than 12 million times since it first appeared in 2007.

Viral dissemination was also responsible for making Bruno Ganz, the actor who played Adolf Hitler in Downfall, the 2004 film about the last days of Hitler, into the most famous German actor in the world – though in this case the makers of the film came to regard its online notoriety as a mixed blessing as parodies of one of its climactic scenes started to spread virally across the network.

According to YouTube, 60 hours of video material are uploaded to it every minute – an hour a second. In the midst of such abundance, how can anything get noticed? Attention is now the scarcest commodity in cyberspace – which explains why virality is so craved by those with things to sell or messages to transmit. In that sense, the most significant thing about the Kony video is that it represents the most successful exploitation of virality to date. But when you delve deeper, it turns out that its success owes something to network theory as well as to storytelling craft.

Many years ago, the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter published a seminal article in the American Journal of Sociology on the special role of "weak ties" in networks – links among people who are not closely bonded – as being critical for spreading ideas and for helping people join together for action.

An examination of the spread of the Kony video suggests that one weak tie in particular may have been critical in launching it to its present eminence. Her name is Oprah Winfrey and she tweeted: "Have watched the film. Had them on show last year" on 6 March, after which the graph of YouTube views of the video switches to the trajectory of a bat out of hell. Winfrey, it turns out, has 9.7 million followers on Twitter.

The Kony video and the assumptions behind it have been subjected to searching criticism by scholars like Ethan Zuckerman, who have challenged its simplistic analysis of a complex country and its ideological biases – for example its implicit assumption that Africans are hopeless and that the only solutions to their problems can come from white foreigners. Some have suggested that the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, is no angel either. And there has been a fierce online debate about the ethical dilemmas of viral transmission.

"Kony is like a Rorschach test on to which we inscribe our own simplistically naive ethical calculus," wrote one commentator. Others observe that "sharing" the video gives people the opportunity of salving their consciences without doing anything serious about the problem of northern Uganda. And so on.

The dissemination of the Kony meme does raise interesting questions for the future. It's the most dramatic demonstration so far of how an idea can spread over the globe via a channel that is beyond the reach and control of established media outlets. YouTube can't compete with conventional broadcasting at reaching billions of people instantaneously. But it operates outside the control of conventional gatekeepers and editorial sieves. And a third of the world's population now uses the internet, so the video could, in time, reach an awful lot of people.

And what about truth, lies and propaganda? The Kony video was made by people whose intentions seem good, even if their ideology and analysis may be a touch simplistic. But what if a video with more sinister antecedents were to get this kind of viral boost? It suggests the old saying that "a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on" is acquiring a chilling new resonance.

The really interesting question, though, is whether this kind of development will further ratchet up the pressure on democratic politicians. The last two decades have shown how 24/7 media coverage of foreign atrocities can lead western leaders to morally driven interventionism.

There comes a point when the shouting that "something must be done" can no longer be ignored. We saw this in Kosovo and Libya and we are now hearing it about Syria. If the Kony video does lead to increased US pressure on the Ugandan regime to catch the LRA leader then we'll know that the era of network power has finally arrived. But I wouldn't bet on it.

John Naughton's book From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know about the Internet has recently been published by Quercus Books

**SmoothOperator** · 03-10-2012, 08:12 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
OK i dig that...it's sad that the so-called afrikan-amerikan leadership ignores stuff like this <span style="font-weight: bold">but a white guy has to be the one to supposedly shed light on this issue before the world</span>...similar to the darfur, sudan craze of a few years back-- with celebrities and everything
</div></div>

Gee. Would you feel better if it was a black guy who started the viral video? Do you see everything in black and white? The point is someone with promotional savvy seems to have brought attention to an important matter. That is really all that matters.

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:05 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TreyJ</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
OK i dig that...it's sad that the so-called afrikan-amerikan leadership ignores stuff like this <span style="font-weight: bold">but a white guy has to be the one to supposedly shed light on this issue before the world</span>...similar to the darfur, sudan craze of a few years back-- with celebrities and everything
</div></div>

Gee. Would you feel better if it was a black guy who started the viral video? Do you see everything in black and white? The point is someone with promotional savvy seems to have brought attention to an important matter. That is really all that matters. </div></div>

WAKE UP MAN!!

wake up to the tricks of the hidden hand and don't believe the hype...

the more hype the more direction from the hidden hand...

it seems kony may have died years ago and all the evidence says he has not operated in uganda for years...

listen to some real ugandans and stop worshipping the media gods who direct your thinking and shape your opinions...
use some deeper analysis and try to see how we are being manipulated...

this young girl gives a brilliant brakdown

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**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:09 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

KONY 2012 IS ILLUMINATTI PROPAGANDA...driven by hollyweird

Trey J watch this if you have the stomach

"we need the white man to save us!!! you black people supporting this should be ashamed of yourselves"

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**SmoothOperator** · 03-10-2012, 09:21 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

You read the blurb for her video response:

===============================

"In response to Kony 2012 video made by InvisibleChildren, I do not think the LRA or Kony is good and I do not support them.

I trust the 100 U.S. military troops already sent are doing their job to find Kony, whether he is dead or alive and do what needs to be done for the sake of Central Africa.

I am just promoting the education one should do before they believe everything they see. The Kony 2012 Video is not the only information you should rely on. Research. I am all for the cause, just not the video that was made."

================================

Nobody should rely solely on a youtube video for information. I see it as a starting point for further research. With that said your "white guy" comment was bigoted because what does that have to do with anything - the facts are what they are.

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 09:54 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TreyJ</div><div class="ubbcode-body">your "white guy" comment was bigoted because what does that have to do with anything - the facts are what they are</div></div>

why was it bigoted?
is it not a "white" guy behind this film?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: MGee</div><div class="ubbcode-body">this was meant to be a "joke photo" according to IC's founders.

</div></div>

**jah_yout** · 03-10-2012, 10:06 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

his was my favorite part of the article you posted;

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Kony video and the assumptions behind it have been subjected to searching criticism by scholars like Ethan Zuckerman, who have challenged<span style="font-weight: bold"> its simplistic analysis of a complex country and its ideological biases</span> – for example <span style="font-weight: bold">its implicit assumption that Africans are hopeless and that the only solutions to their problems can come from white foreigners</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold">Some have suggested that the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, is no angel either</span>. And there has been a fierce online debate about the ethical dilemmas of viral transmission.</div></div>

**SmoothOperator** · 03-10-2012, 10:15 PM

Re: Now this is a viral video

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TreyJ</div><div class="ubbcode-body">your "white guy" comment was bigoted because what does that have to do with anything - the facts are what they are</div></div>

why was it bigoted?
is it not a "white" guy behind this film?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: MGee</div><div class="ubbcode-body">this was meant to be a "joke photo" according to IC's founders.

</div></div> </div></div>

Only you can answer why the fact that it was filmed by a white guy riled you so. As for me I gave in and watched the video because I got tired of seeing it referenced on all the sites I visit. After watching it I did not feel the need to start an email chain sending it to my circle of friends nor did I feel compelled to donate money since that is not the way I operate. I thought it was an interesting video and that it was filmed very well - that was about it. Yea I did notice the film maker was white but the one thing I never thought while watching it was here comes the white man trying to save the black man again.

Now this is a viral video

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