It describes Kony's actions with his rebel militia group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), including forced recruitment of child soldiers, and the regions (northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan) in which they have been active.

This list included 20 "celebrity culture makers", such as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey (who significantly helped to spread the video[14]), Taylor Swift, and Ryan Seacrest.

[26] A number of celebrities endorsed the awareness campaign against Kony, including Justin Bieber, Bill Gates, Christina Milian, Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian, Pete Wentz, Rihanna, and Elliot Page.

[42] The Special Representative and head of the newly created United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), Abou Moussa, said that international interest in Kony was "useful, very important".

[43] The White House released a statement of support through Press Secretary Jay Carney, who stated in a news conference, "We congratulate the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have mobilized to this unique crisis of conscience" and said that the raised awareness from the video is "consistent with the bipartisan legislation passed by our congress in 2010.

"[45] Anthony Lake, the executive director of UNICEF, was cited as saying that a similar viral video would have made a difference during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, also suggesting that "this kind of public attention would also have helped save more lives in Darfur and in Congo's warring east.

We gathered evidence at massacre sites—wooden clubs covered in dried blood, rubber strips from bicycle tires used to tie up the victims, and freshly dug graves—and spoke to hundreds of boys and girls forced to fight for his army or held captive as sex slaves.

He also said that complexity had long been "a leading excuse for inaction during atrocities" and that Kony remains a threat in Uganda's neighbour countries, so the simplicity of the film "has left the American public more informed" than it would be otherwise, and that if he "were a Congolese villager", he would "welcome these uncertain efforts over the sneering scorn of do-nothing armchair cynics.

"[46] Foreign correspondent Roger Cohen called it "simplifying grossly and distorting adeptly to make a valid point: that no effort should be spared to arrest Kony.

"[53] Former war correspondent Gotham Chopra said that he understands "the instinctive backlash (really it's irritation)" towards the film and the campaign, but "there is enormous value in the fact that millions of people are talking today about genocide in Africa that were mostly unaware of it yesterday.

"[54] Jane Bussmann, author of a 2009 book about Kony and the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni, compared the campaign favorably to the "culture of charity-as-industry" as "at least Kony2012 linked suffering to perpetrators, and urged the young American audience it's aimed at to contact a politician.

"[58] It was noted by Los Angeles Times journalists Lindsay Branham and Jocelyn Kelly that a number of people living in the areas where the LRA is currently active have previously called for attention and advocacy to be directed at the issue.

[59] Julien Marneffe, a worker for Catholic Relief Services in Goma said "it's been an undeniable success – and one all humanitarian organizations working in this area can be happy about," but added to "be careful not to oversimplify the issue" and worried that the interest might be short-lived when "another crisis or another video will be the next online trend, and I fear that most people will forget about the problems of the LRA.

Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland from Clark University's Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies stated that it was "irresponsible to prize feel good, simplistic messages over complex history and to treat consumerist-consciousness raising as interchangeable with education.

"[63] Africa researcher Alex de Waal accused the film of "peddling dangerous and patronizing falsehoods," criticized the campaign as "naïve" for "elevating Kony to a global celebrity, the embodiment of evil," that might only help him as a terrorist and cult leader and said that instead they should've been "demystifying Kony—reducing him to a common criminal and a failed provincial politician.

[68] Anne Goddard, president and CEO of ChildFund International, wrote that "by narrowing the focus on Kony, by defining success so singularly, it gives people a greater sense that the issue [of globally widespread conscription of young children] can be resolved.

"[69] United Nations Under-Secretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy called for the Kony2012 campaign to divert its donation funds from supporting military action to capture Kony to rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for former child soldiers.

[70] Victor Ochen, founder and director of Ugandan rehabilitation NGO African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET), said that campaign "to promote [Kony] or make him famous" is "offensive", in part because of the Cover the Night event's date (an anniversary of the Atiak massacre by the LRA in Uganda in 1995 and the date of birth of Adolf Hitler), adding "How do you think Americans would have reacted if people in another country wore Osama bin Laden T-shirts?

[76][77] Some Ugandan commentators have also criticized the video for its aim of making Kony "famous", even believing it means to "celebrate" him, and for its advocacy of foreign military intervention to stop him.

"[80] Father Ernest Sugule, national coordinator of the Congolese non-governmental organization SAIPD in Dungu, DRC, claimed that the few people there "who have succeeded in watching [Kony 2012] are very critical on the film," as is he himself.

"[15] A statement purported to be released by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army rebels and signed by the group's spokesman[81] and negotiator Justine Nyeko ("The Leader, LRA Peace Team")[82] condemned the film as "a cheap and banal panic act of mass trickery to make the unsuspecting peoples of the world complicit in the US rogue and murderous activities in Central Africa.

As an explanation for the simplicity of the movie, they stated that "in [their] quest to garner wide public support of nuanced policy, [they] sought to explain the conflict in an easily understandable format."

Jedidiah Jenkins, the director of idea development for Invisible Children, responded to the new criticisms by saying that they were "myopic" and that the video itself was a "tipping point" that "got young people to care about an issue on the other side of the planet that doesn't affect them.

"[84] A video titled Thank you, KONY 2012 Supporters was released on March 12, 2012, to address the criticisms directed at the film and to be "fully transparent", according to Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey.

[88] The website Kickstriker, a parody of Kickstarter, contains a fake appeal to crowdsource the "hiring private military contractors from Academi (formerly Blackwater), who will be immediately deployed to central Africa" with a mission to capture or kill Kony.

[97] In a pre-release comment, popular culture expert Robert Thompson said: "The fact is, the story has developed in so many odd ways with all the controversy, and the sequel can't really promise the bang of that first video—which is informing people of something they did not know before.

"[95] The LRA researcher Craig Valters of the LSE's Department of International Development said that the second video "overwhelmingly" failed to answer criticisms raised by the first film.

[104] The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency welcomed the "unprecedented" initiative to "end the atrocities in the region" and urged all involved to respect human rights and minimize risk to civilians.

The ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo voiced confidence that the video will "produce the arrest of Joseph Kony this year," adding: "That is the impact of the campaign.

[107] On March 21, 2012, a resolution "condemning Joseph Kony and his ruthless guerrilla group for a 26-year campaign of terror" was put forward by Senators Jim Inhofe and Chris Coons.