'Kony 2012' creates waves over internet

The short documentary "Kony 2012" is making waves over the internet, raising awareness about the issues faced by children in Uganda.

When "Kony 2012" was made and posted by a charity group called Invisible Children, even they were not aware how big a thing it would become. "Kony 2012" is 30-minute long documentary and has received millions of views.

The short documentary is about the plight of children in Uganda, where they are being abducted and tortured by warlong Joseph Kony. Kony is the leader of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) guerilla group. His group has abducted around 60,000 children so far.

The video has gone viral in just a matter of three days. So far, "Kony 2012" has recieved more than 40 million views and the number of views and likes is increasing by the minute. The video was first posted by Invisible Children on Youtube on Monday afternoon. The group also posted a link to the video on their Facebook page, asking their fans to share it.

By Tuesday, "Kony 2012" had 66,000 views and on that day, it caught the attention of celebrities, who shared it on their own social media pages. The word got around when a woman from Australia tweeted to Oprah about the film and asked her to share it. Oprah then posted a link to "Kony 2012" on her page and her 9.6 million followers reposted it on their own pages. Justin Bieber, the Kardashians and P. Diddy followed suit soon.

"You guys are making Kony famous and you're breaking the Internet," Invisible Children said Tuesday on its Facebook page, which ballooned from 444,461 subscribers on Monday to more than 2.1 million as of Thursday. On Twitter, the group's followers jumped as well, going from 54,375 followers before the release of "Kony 2012" to more than 333,000 on Thursday.

Even though "Kony 2012" is a story about the troubled children of Uganda and their tyrant warlord, it starts off in America and revolves around a young father/filmmaker named Jason Russell and his son, Gavin. Gavin starts asking his father questions about Kony when he sees his picture, and from that point onwards, the story about Kony becomes clearer.

The wider problem of child trafficking and abuse in Uganda cannot be resolved by sharing and liking videos only, but at least people have started thinking in this direction and that marks the starting of change.