So what if I haven't jumped on the KONY bandwagon...

I think that pretty much everyone who is part of the internet world will be aware of the new 'KONY' sensation. If not, basically, an American guy called Jason Russell met a Ugandan boy, Jacob. Jacob and his brother were one of the many children captured by a man called, Joseph Kony. This evil man had kidnapped over 30,000 children away from their families to form some sort of child army, making them 'sex-slaves' and forcing them to kill their parents.

Above is the video that Jason Russell created to 'make Kony famous'.

Jason, has been campaigning for nine years and created this video in the hope that people will watch this and  be aware of the things that are going on. 

Don't get me wrong, the images on the video are very moving, but I can't help but be incredibly sceptical. It may seem like I have a hollow chest or a tin heart because I do believe that this sort of thing actually happens, but how has this not been on the news already?!

Being a 'trainee journalist' news is obviously an important part in my life. So, surely when seeing stories such as; Syria and the death of Gaddafi an issue as huge as this would be at least highlighted on the news. People could say this is down to the fact that they wouldn't want to show such a bad thing on the news, but isn't this what news is all about?! As my lecturer said today, what would be more news worthy...A dog biting a human? OR A human biting a dog? News definitely goes for the shock factor.

In the video it talks about Kony being top on the list of most wanted - Gaddafi was ninth - so Jason is trying to get people aware of this to get troops out to Uganda. In my eyes if this was completely true, or genuine surely they would have people looking for this guy. 

I noticed this story went viral yesterday after seeing the video clutter up my news feed on Facebook and Twitter. So when watching 'This Morning' I was expecting to hear all about this (they usually cover all the twitter stories) considering it was trending for the whole day yesterday. Being unusually sceptical, this got me thinking whether this is just a huge money making scam...

I saw this on Facebook earlier.

"everyone piping up about Kony... what will making him famous help achieve?! he's living in the jungle in Africa. they don't even know if it's in Uganda, Sudan or the Congo.. how will they find him and how will you help by 'liking' a page or sharing a video or putting posters up?! it's been going on for over 20 years but a video goes viral yesterday and everyone is suddenly some activist that knows exactly what's going on there. Uganda have their own army, it's not our fault they haven't found him yet... Why should the US or we get involved when there is nothing in it for us? Just to send our lads in to get slaughtered in a jungle? it could go on for years, no one has a clue where he is.. If you actually know how they're going to get him then feel free to post about it, but if you don't and you're mindlessly sharing some video because you're some bellend wanting to look like you're doing something good then you can just piss off"

This relates to the 'illusion of truth effect', the more people hear something, the more they believe it truth. This is especially highlighted in the present social networking day when information is travelling faster to more people.

My boyfriend forced me to watch this video all the way through, it was very moving, but still didn't convince me and I suppose Grace's reaction was pretty true.

This shows the world is pretty messed up, after seeing this for one day the whole of England are social activists. Six of our soldiers were announced missing and believed killed yesterday, but this has been shadowed by Kony. Next week everyone will all go back to their ignorant lives.