What Exactly Do People Think #BringBackOurGirls Will Accomplish?

For years, the terrorist organization Boko Haram has been murdering people throughout Nigeria. Last year in July they killed 42 children in an attack on a school. Two months later, they murdered another 40 people at a college. Hundreds have been massacred by these disgusting excuses for human beings for years.

Today, and for the past few weeks, the Twitter "hashtag" #bringbackourgirls has been sweeping the site. Just a simple Twitter search of it will turn up thousands of tweets saying the same thing.

Possibly the most famous of these tweets was First Lady Michelle Obama tweeting out a picture of herself frowning, holding a card that reads, "#BringBackOurGirls:"

But what exactly do people think such things will accomplish? Are they aware that simply writing on Twitter will not physically remove girls from the grasp of Boko Haram and deliver them safely home?

Boko Haram will not be checking how many "re-tweets" Michelle Obama will get and, if she eclipses a certain number, they will release their captives. Boko Haram does not care that several thousand Twitter users in San Francisco wrote "#bringbackourgirls." None of these people will physically do anything to force this terrorist organization to actually do anything at all. In fact, it's more than likely that Boko Haram hasn't even heard of this campaign.

Years ago, "KONY2012" took Twitter by storm. And what has happened because of all of those tweets?

This is not to say that people should not want innocents to be released. I think all sane individuals want that. But do people writing the same thing over and over again on Twitter think this will actually do something?

More than that, who is this campaign aimed at? Is it truly aimed a Boko Haram? Because if it is, do people truly believe that these terrorists are monitoring Twitter, keeping track of how many people write this? And if it's not, who is it aimed at?
[caption id="attachment_26156" align="alignnone" width="576"] An Average Group of Tweets with this Hashtag[/caption]
Are people telling President Obama to take military action in Nigeria? Are they in favor of drone strikes? Maybe they want another country, maybe the UK or France, to invade? What do these people actually think this hashtag will accomplish.

Public support is already heavily against terrorists murdering school girls. We didn't need a hashtag for that. The only thing that this exercise is doing in the United States is distracting from the scandals enveloping the Obama White House. And perhaps, that's what #bringbackourgirls was meant to do all along. Not actually help save hundreds of young ladies in Nigeria; really, how could it? But instead, it may easily use the lives of these young women as political pawns to distract low-information voters.