Or does it show that we’re only interested in popular causes that will give us the impression of holding the moral high ground over others?

Judging by the present state of the online debate about the actions of Kony (pictured) and the organisation attempting to bring him to justice, Invisible Children, I’m inclined to believe it’s a combination of the two.

For those fortunate enough to have missed the internet’s biggest talking point for the past month, the debate I speak of stems from a 30-minute awareness-raising documentary, KONY 2012, released online in early March by Invisible Children, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to having Ugandan guerilla fighter Joseph Kony arrested and brought before the International Criminal Court.

The video, using highly emotive language and images, detailed Kony and the Lord Resistance Army’s two-decade battle in Uganda and the war crimes they are alleged to have committed, including the use of child soldiers.

It spread at an unprecedented rate, with people who couldn’t find Uganda on a map only minutes before sharing it with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Others went further, inviting friends to decorate their hometowns with posters of Kony this Friday during ‘Cover the Night’events in order to gain the attention of political leaders.

It was heartening to see people who would ordinarily use Facebook and Twitter as a place to vent about work or university instead turning their attention to international affairs.

However, people also seemed motivated by a need to be seen to be ‘doing’ something and being a part of what was at the time the most popular topic on social networking sites.

Sharing the film on Facebook with friends who’d already seen it posted on their news feeds 50 times was seen as a simple way of improving the world.

Before long, accusations of misrepresentation emerged. This gave sceptics of the video the chance to claim a moral high ground of their own and criticise the lack of extra research undertaken by those who’d relied entirely on the video for information.

Unfortunately, the initial ‘extra research’ seemed limited to unverified posts on Wordpress, reddit and tumblr; sites known more for user-generated opinion and amusing photos of cats than impartial information about central African conflicts.

Most of the information from these posts was later found to be correct: Kony fled Uganda in 2006, Invisible Children spends only a third of its budget in Africa and questions remain about its ties to the Ugandan army.

However, that the critics initially relied only on these posts shows that, rather than being driven by a desire to broaden their own knowledge of the issue, many were simply interested in boasting that the video’s supporters had been conned.

From there, as tends to happen in internet debates, discussion of Kony degenerated into a vicious game of one-upmanship between supporters and critics of Invisible Children. All concern for the situation in Uganda seemed to disappear as Western keyboard warriors accused one another of being more ignorant of the situation.

Until we see the results of Friday night’s ‘Cover the Night’ events, we’ll be left wondering whether the widespread interest in Kony was yet another short-lived internet fad or a genuine desire to make a difference in the world.

Did you jump on the Kony bandwagon? Do you still care about the issue, or has the hype turned you off? Let me know your thoughts via email at stephen.jeffery@ruralpress.com or on Twitter: @stephenejeffery.