It is turning out that the past few days have been rough on true believers willing to rush with emotions into fray. Kony2012 became a rallying viral video on YouTube and over 80 million people watched, linked and pledged to do something about the atrocities in Uganda. As soon as the video became known to the media, questions popped up about the organization behind the video and it's message. The leading refrain from those who would dare question the sincerity of the people who worked on the video or who organized the campaign was that even if there were bumps in the organization due to rapid growth and increased scrutiny, the main focus and goal was to expose Kony and to bring him to justice.

While that might be a perfect sentiment to a semi rouge cop on popular American TV shows, going rouge in the real world, with real people questioning your actions, makes you look more like Sarah Palin. The director of the Kony2012 video and co-founder of the organization that has worked on promoting the Kony2012 campaign, Jason Russell, had an incident in San Diego earlier yesterday. While there have been some dispute as to how lurid his actions were, what hasn't been in question is that he was seen in his underwear walking along the street, possibly vandalizing cars. He wasn't arrested, but he was taken to the hospital for evaluation. As a personal note, I find it insulting to everyone's intelligence that the organization would try to pass off his actions and subsequent hospital evaluation as a result of “exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition.” I admit there were reports of some activity I don't wish to repeat, specifically because I haven't seen it confirmed enough for me to feel comfortable repeating it, but there seems to be something fundamentally troubling about the their cautious explanation and the scrutiny that has been focused on the organization the past week.

On another similar vein, the past few weeks has seen Apple computers take hits from reports of inhuman conditions at it manufacturing plants in China. This has been famously chronicled by monologist Mike Daisy in his one man show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. It could be imagined that examples of incredibly strenuous working conditions would curb the world's love affair with the iPad, iPhone and other products. Apple did the unusual by allowing an independent investigation of the facilities along with reporters allowed to investigate on their own. This week the mania over the release of the new Apple iPad overshadowed reports that early reports of unhealthy working conditions may not have been accurate. The radio show This American Life, which did an extensive story on the plant in January, has issued a retraction, claiming Daisy had lied to them about his claims. In an explanation that Mike Daisy gave Up With Chris Hayes, while not suggesting that he lied he did imply that since he wasn't a journalist, he could use storytelling techniques that would emphasize the underlying issues at the plants without being accurate about them.

A remember a few months ago when I reported about the elephant hunt GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons went on. At the time there were calls to boycott GoDaddy, which was lead by PETA. When I explained that PETA had their domain name with GoDaddy (it was moved from the company a few days later) and I showed how a boycott wouldn't phase the company, I was told by someone that “the facts don't matter. Calling attention to the atrocity is what's important.”

There have been a number of incidents in the past year following the same pattern. People are correctly trying to get people motivated to action on atrocities and wrongs throughout the world. We are bombarded by so much junk that cutting through that clutter and getting people motivated can take some creative maneuvering. With the technology we have, a good number of people are clicking a Like button or hitting retweet without fully understanding or researching the cause. Furthermore it doesn't help when those who are part of the cause feel it's OK to play fast and loose with the truth, if they feel by doing so will promote the cause. These social causes will have push back from those opposed to their actions. Of course they will use distortions or half truths to make their point. It gets very hard to defend the goodness of a cause when the cause is hit by its own misrepresentations.

We have to be cautious when supporting social causes. We have to be sure that the organizers are being truthful in their statements and that we aren't reacting to a slick presentation, a powerful video or a questionable plea for help.

Just as I have been working on this article, I saw a local news report about Jason Russell and his actions on Friday. With video shown of his display, a neighbor describing some of the actions he did, a reporter making sure to say he was placed in a mental hospital for evaluation and the organization attributing all of this to stress and dehydration, people are going to see that 30 second report and will think twice about wanting to help the organization. Sure the die-hard supporters will continue to march forward, but I guarantee the enthusiasm will be less than expected. After the Kony2012 date has passed, will the enthusiasm of the activist still be there? Even with the reports of labor issues in China, the big story on Friday was the line of people at stores across the country trying to get their hands on the new iPad. If those folks were concerned about labor conditions of the people who made the iPad it didn't deter them from scrambling to be the first with the device.