If you have been on any social media in the past week, chances are you’ve seen the video about Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. A roughly 30-minute YouTube video details alleged atrocities that occur in Uganda, including abduction and impressment of children into the army.

This video and the effort to stop Kony has gone viral. Links are rampant on Facebook, Twitter and even appear in the form of clan tags on Xbox Live. However, things are not all that they seem.

For instance, according to the Ugandan government, Kony has not been active in Uganda since at least 2005. Personnel under his command has reportedly dwindled to a few hundred followers, who are hiding out in neighboring countries. Uganda is actually spearheading a task force to find Kony, and Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has said the country does not need a YouTube drive to help find Kony.

This perfectly illustrates a major problem that has come about via social media. With the click of a button, it is all too easy to share any and every single video or document that is of interest. Unfortunately, this leaves what is seen and heard without any sort of peer review.

It is extremely easy to fall for rhetorical traps, as well as plays to sympathy and empathy by organizations with a specific agenda. Before the advent of the Internet and social media, documents and videos would be reviewed before they were published for the general public. Now, any person with a camcorder can record a video and instantly make it available to millions of people.

This also harms the effectiveness of any movements to affect social change. Movements can pop up — and disappear — overnight. They come around constantly, each distracting desperately needed attention from the last.

People don’t commit as strongly either. Next month, the Kony movement may be replaced by some other movement. This is partially because of the lack of effort required by supporters. Previously, when a person was deciding to support a cause, it often required in-depth research. This simultaneously better informed the supporter and strengthened the supporters’ ties to the cause.

But now, a bunch of Facebook “friends” are sharing causes, as though they were a beer bong at a party. Interested in giving the appearance of caring, others follow suit. The process feeds into itself, creating a poorly informed and inactive support structure, which is likely to abandon it the first time the cause requires personal effort.

Research and dedication are key to making causes survive longer than the instant in which they are born. Real problems, perhaps ones that cannot be covered in a slick 30-minute YouTube video are out there, and they need attention.