By Shannon Corrigan
The overwhelming success of the viral video campaign to raise global awareness of the brutal actions of a Central African rebel leader is also attracting criticism, sources report.
With the use of social media, YouTube, and other internet sites, the Invisible Children's campaign to make militia leader Joseph Kony a household name has received massive attention, reports the Associated Press.
"Kony's Lord's Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda in the 1980s, when Kony sought to overthrow the government. Since being pushed out of Uganda several years ago, the LRA has terrorized villages in Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. The group takes young women into sexual slavery and forces children to commit heinous attacks," reports the Associated Press.
Some criticized the film's content as muckraking and misleading, failing to recognize that Joseph Kony is no longer as much of a threat as he was in the early 2000s.It is now thought that the LRA only has a few hundred followers, and officials believe he is no longer in Uganda, the Washington Post reports.
Jedidiah Jenkins, Invisible Children's director of ideology, said the viral impact of the video represents its achievement. "How are you going to get young people to care about an issue on the other side of the planet that doesn't affect them?" Jenkins asked. "We did that", reports the Washington Post.
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