You know what I think is funny? The Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. Oh, wait—and what about those three women who were held hostage in Cleveland and raped repeatedly? Man, does that lend itself to some late-night talk-show humor. Oh, oh! The Lindbergh kidnapping—thatboy died. Hilarious!

O.K., I believe nothing I just said. Each of those instances is a horror—not the slightest bit humorous. In fact, anyone who seriously uttered the words in that first paragraph would have to be a sociopathic monster.

Which leads me to the amoral and fundamentally merciless evil oozing from the lips of some of the right wing’s most attention-seeking, blowhardy blowhards. Because, for too many of them, nothingis funnier these days than the hundreds of little girls who were kidnapped by terrorists Boko Haram in Nigeria and who face the prospect of being sold into sex slavery. In other words, these right-wingers are people who have descended beneath the gutter into the viscous sewer of inhumanity, people who have surrendered any right to claim a role in civilized society.

This appears to stem from a pathological need, on the part of some conservatives, to ridicule or oppose everything that might, even tangentially, be connected to Barack Obama. I’ve often thought that Obama should come out in favor of oxygen, just to see how many right-wingers keel over from holding their breath for too long.

This time, the obscene reaction was prompted by a hashtag. After the kidnapping of the more than 300 high-school girls on April 15 in northern Nigeria, the country’s leaders basically sat on their hands. Word spread that the children were being sold off as “wives” to some of the terrorists for just $12. Fifty-three of the girls escaped, leaving 276 still missing this month. Parents of the girls pleaded with the government to act, but eventually gave up. “They are just telling lies,’’ one of the parents said to The New York Times. So instead, the parents began their own search for the children, while begging the international community to pressure the Nigerian government to help.

On April 23, someone in Nigeria launched a campaign through social media. Using twitter, this individual sent out a message that included the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. It was a plaintive cry, a prayer that the world would join in pressuring the Nigerian government to rescue the children.

International protests—particularly those visible on computer screens around the world—have proven to be invaluable in modern times, both for organizing campaigns and pushing to overcome injustices. As described in a research paper by Nahed Eltantawy and Julie B. Wiest who teach at High Point University in North Carolina:

New communication technologies—especially social media via the Internet— have become important resources for the mobilization of collective action and the subsequent creation, organization, and implementation of social movements around the world. The development of social media created opportunities for Web-fueled social movements, or cyberactivism, to change the landscape of collective action.

Has it worked before? Sure—social media such as tweets and blog posts have been found by researchers to have been significant in shaping the Arab Spring. Unifying world opinion can play a big role in moving governments into action or corrupt leaders into flight.

Washington joined the campaign in a big way. First, Michelle Obama posted a photograph of herself holding a sign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls on it, throwing the power of her prominence behind the effort to push for action by Nigeria; it became the most re-tweeted image in the entire effort. Then, she substituted for her husband on the weekly presidential radio address to speak about the Nigerian kidnappings. While such a move was not unprecedented—Laura Bush did the same thing in 2001 to denounce the treatment of women in Afghanistan—it was still rare enough to increase the attention to the plight of the girls. Plus, it had the advantage of leveling pressure on the Nigerian government with a message delivered by a powerful person who holds no legal authority, but who clearly has the ear of the president.