Video to Stop African Warlord Joseph Kony Goes Viral

You might be hearing the name Joseph Kony a lot lately, and it's all part of a calculated media campaign to get the African warlord arrested. The group Invisible Children has posted a 30-minute video called "Kony 2012" whose sole purpose is to spread the word about his atrocities and raise international pressure to get him arrested. While that may not sound like your typical viral video, it has exploded in popularity over the last 24 hours, in part because it so "gripping and disturbing," notes the San Jose Mercury News.

It helps, too, that Invisible Children is using a savvy campaign that enlists celebrities to help spread the anti-Kony message. NPR's Two-Way blog calls the video a "powerful piece of work" and provides more background about the campaign. That includes pointing to this Foreign Affairs article, which accuses Invisible Children and other groups of having "manipulated facts" to portray "Kony—a brutal man, to be sure—as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil." See the video in the gallery, which includes a push for a day of activism on April 20. (More Joseph Kony stories.)