Gilad Lotan at SocialFlow has another of his great data analyses of how memes flow through Twitter — in this case, how the campaign against Joseph Kony generated enormous velocity. (The video topped 100 million YouTube views faster than any video in history.) Pressing celebrities to amplify the case — Oprah, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, the aforementioned Veronica Mars — was key. Lotan:

This raises some important questions about the type of tactics used to demand their attention. Is it okay to deploy such tactics to get people to easily ping celebrities? Some services deploy similar tactics that get constituents to call or send messages to their representatives. How is this different?

On the other side of the scale, what are the unintended consequences of drawing attention to a cause one has not completely evaluated? And how can celebrities make the best decision when targeted by so many requests coming from so many directions? Seems like in this case, the loud voice won. Will this type of behavior encourage more to use the same tactics? And how will this change the way celebrities interact with audiences on these platforms?