Invisible Children, the American non-profit group behind the Kony2012 campaign will release a new video today in response to criticisms of its methods and questions about the group's approach.
The group garnered international attention when it released a video online last week explaining to the world, and the videographer's young son, the decades-long transgressions of Joseph Kony.
Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa, a group known for abducting of young boys and girls and forcing them to become soldiers and sex slaves in its army.
Kony and his rebel fighters are known in Africa for terrorizing a nation and region. He is at the top of the International Criminal Court's list of indicted criminals. But before the Kony2012 campaign, he was unknown to much of the world outside of Africa.
The campaign changed that in an overnight online phenomenon that had Facebook and Twitter users posting and re-tweeting the video, including tweets from George Clooney and Rihanna.
The viral campaign was the brainchild of film maker Jason Russell after nine years of working and filming on and off in Uganda.
But the group and its methods have been challenged in the wake of the phenomenon it created with questions about its funding, its focus on armed intervention and other criticism it has faced from the international community.
They've been accused of making money off other people's suffering among other accusations.
The video they are expected to release today will address criticisms, including concerns that the video may in fact put the women and children still with Kony at greater risk.
"There's nothing to hide — Invisible Children has been transparent since 2004, when we started," said Ben Keesey, the group's chief executive, in an interview with CNN Sunday night. He and Russell said they are not profiting from the campaign and that 81 per cent of funds raised for the non-profit go to programming.
"We think of it as the children's money," Russell told CNN.
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