Anonymous Launches Operation Kony 2012, Supports Invisible Children
The video, posted by an account called anonyops addresses “the citizens of the world.” The declaration outlines Invisible Children’s message, and goes one step further, equating Kony with “Osama ben Laden and Adolf Hitler.” Screengrab

International online geek-hacktivist collective Anonymous threw their support behind controversial activist non-profit organization Invisible Children and their current project Kony 2012, which is quickly spreading online in the form of a 30-minute-long call to arms against Ugandan guerilla leader Joseph Kony. In Anonymous's video declaration of support they name April 20, 2012 as a day of action.

The video, posted by an account called anonyops addresses the citizens of the world. The declaration outlines Invisible Children's message, and goes one step further, equating Kony with Osama ben Laden and Adolf Hitler.

Anonymous states that they have announced solidarity with invisible Children, and continue to explain that every person who considers himself a member of Anonymous must take part in what they have dubbed Operation Kony 2012.

We must ban together to stop evil or else we are hypocrites, the video argues.

According to the video, April 20, 2012, will be the group's official day of action in order to bring attention to the Kony 2012 movement.

We will converge in the night, Anonymous warns. We will have posters, flyers, signs and anything that will bring attention to the people. On every single street corner, every building, every institution there will be signs demanding justice against Joseph Kony.

The video ends with Anonymous's tagline, slightly modified for Kony's benefit.

We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Joseph Kony, expect us all.

An Anonymous members has also rewritten the lyrics to the theme song The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in order to draw attention to the humanitarian issue, dubbing new lyrics the Operation Kony song.

Controversy Surrounds Invisible Children and Kony 2012

The Kony 2012 video has been drawing criticism as well as support. While most critics agree that Joseph Kony is a war criminal who deserves to be brought to justice for his use of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), they challenge Invisible Children's motives as well as why they have waited so long to launch this campaign, considering that Kony and the LRA have been terrorizing Uganda, Congo, and Sudan for over 25 years, while killing thousands and kidnapping around 66,000 children.

Foreign Affairs challenged Invisible Children's strategies and motives last November.

Such organizations have manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA's use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony -- a brutal man, to be sure -- as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil, the magazine reported.

A Tumblr blog called Visible Children which criticizes the Kony 2012 campaign has received heavy Internet traffic.

These problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren't of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow, the blog says.