Recently Twitter has been the driving force behind the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. In total, over 300 school girls in Nigeria were kidnapped by Islamic militant group Boko Haram on 14th April, since then twitter has taken to the masses to raise awareness with over 2.3 million tweets containing the said hashtag.
But how effective is this?
Firstly, it is important to establish exactly who and what Boko Haram represent and do.
A recent article by senior Cosmopolitan writer Jill Filipovic expressed her concern of the #bringbackourgirls trend turning into another #Kony2012.
“Ask someone today what country was Joseph Kony from, and see if they can even answer you.”
She told NBC news, “Ask someone today what country was Joseph Kony from, and see if they can even answer you.”
However she added social media is effective at voicing concerns and that shouldn’t stop. “It’s great social media is now active on the missing schoolgirls’ story, but context is important.”
The #BringBackOurGirls trend has seen a variety of celebrities and political figures, even the First Lady Michelle Obama, take to social media to voice their angst.
But what is being done to bring these girls back home?
Activism taking place outside of the Twittersphere in Nigeria
Help
British Prime Minister David Cameron told the BBC that he had been in contact with Nigerian Prime Minister Goodluck Jonathan and offered him support, “we agreed to send out a team that includes some counter-terrorism and intelligence experts to work alongside the bigger American team that’s going out there.”
What has been stressed by senior political figures and social media experts is that raising awareness is hugely important, but it is only the beginning to solving a problem.
Filipovic explained to NBC the seriousness of the matter, “the ‘stop Kony’ video had 100m hits in 6 days on YouTube, but he is still at large. It is important not to forget the context of hashtag activism.”
Hashtag Trend 