{"id":276,"date":"2011-05-16T04:43:13","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T04:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=276"},"modified":"2011-05-16T05:17:21","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T05:17:21","slug":"mexicans-speak-up-on-twitter-about-drug-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2011\/05\/mexicans-speak-up-on-twitter-about-drug-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexicans Speak Up — on Twitter — About Drug War"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Leyva<\/p><\/div>\n

BY MONICA ADAME<\/p>\n

Denise, a powerful television anchorwoman, heard her smart phone beeped.<\/p>\n

It was April 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cHELP, the town of Uruachi in Chihuahua is under siege by 150 hit men,\u201d read the tweet.<\/p>\n

She quickly retweeted the information and investigated the claim.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three days later, Denise Maerker published an Op-Ed in the national newspaper El Universal, where she contributes regularly.<\/p>\n

The events in the municipality of Uruachi – armed men taking control of isolated highways and terrorizing residents of remote and small towns \u2013 are being repeated <\/strong>all over Mexico\u2019s northern states. Ms. Maerker\u2019s access to both traditional and social media helped to expose this case nationally, but many others remain overlooked.<\/p>\n

Extreme violence has intimidated traditional media outlets into silence. So, residents of the most affected states have developed social media strategies to cover the fight against drug cartels declared by the government in late 2006. They have turned to blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook groups to get a constant stream of uncensored and timely information.<\/p>\n

Building on these initiatives, last year, Alejandro Villarino, a Mexican graduate student at SIPA, decided to create an Ushahidi platform to map violence of drug trafficking in Mexico.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Villarino<\/p><\/div>\n

Ushahidi is a free, open source platform where the public gathers crisis information in real-time. The platform was originally developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-elections period in 2008. In Mexico, the platform would had allowed citizens to report events related to narco <\/em>violence directly on the website, by Twitter or through mobile phone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex pitched his idea to Jos\u00e9 Luis Leyva, a Mexican graduate student as well, completing the dual degree on journalism and international affairs, and they hit it off. Before coming to SIPA, Jos\u00e9 Luis worked as a journalist for the local newspaper El Norte in Monterrey and then with its sister national publication Reforma.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since 2006, 25 journalists have been killed and seven have gone missing according to the report \u201cSilence or Death in Mexico\u2019s Press\u201d prepared by the Committee to Protect Journalists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The attacks against journalists urge citizens to take an active role informing themselves about evolving events. A couple of weeks ago, Sofia Sada, a resident of Monterrey, was coaching football to kindergarten kids when a shooting began outside the school. \u201cAfter running toward the cafeteria and making sure the kids were alright, I tweeted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sofia belongs to a new generation of Mexicans using social media to alert their networks about violence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internet users represent 29.4% of the Mexican population and Facebook has a penetration of almost 100% among them. Twitter users rose in the last two years, but still the number is lower than in the United States where users represent 7%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blogs with unrestricted and anonymous information also sprang rapidly. \u201cBlog del Narco<\/em> (www.blogdelnarco.com<\/a>) has already won a spot as a source. At least as a reference point,\u201d said Genaro Lozano, a professor on social movements at two private universities in Mexico City and a blogger. \u201c[Blogs] have certainly helped to awaken traditional media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After four years of facing war against drug cartels and a human cost of 35,000 deaths, groups like Contingente Tuiter<\/em> have emerged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Contingente<\/em> was born spontaneously a year and a half ago when I asked who of the Twitter users would attend a demonstration,\u201d said Jes\u00fas Robles Maloof, a Mexican human rights activist and very active tuitero<\/em> (Twitter user – @roblesmaloof). \u201cTwenty people showed up and we realized we shared a human rights identity,\u201d Jes\u00fas said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So far, the Contingente<\/em> connects a network of human rights activists in eight cities. Each group voices an independent, local cause and disseminates it through social media.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media is a reflection; it\u2019s an amplifier,\u201d said Jorge Soto, director and co-founder of Citivox (http:\/\/citivox.com\/<\/a>), a service platform linking citizens and decision makers in Mexico. Jorge worked with the Ushahidi developers during the aftermath of the earthquake in Chile in February 27, 2010.\u00a0 \u201cWe latinoamericanized<\/em> the platform,\u201d Jorge recalled laughing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nowadays, Citivox partners with the state of Guerrero (south of Mexico City) on a project to recover residents\u2019 trust in public institutions. This platform allows citizens to report anything from water leaks to violence and has received 80,000 reports, 10% correspond to violent crimes. The information is shared with state authorities and response time has decreased from 72 to 24 hours. \u201cPeople report because they know someone will answer,\u201d Jorge said. \u201cTrust is the base for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex and Jos\u00e9 Luis\u2019 experience ended less happily. In March 2010, they chose to map drug violence in Monterrey, the capital of the rich, Northern state of Nuevo Leon and one of the cities hit the hardest. The place and timing were appropriate: high literacy rate and Internet connectivity, an organized civil society and strong discontent after two students were killed at the gates of an elite university.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They established categories like balacera<\/em> (shooting), narco bloqueos<\/em> (narco <\/em>blockades), or casa de seguridad<\/em> (safe house), but soon realized the challenge of verifying information. \u201cWe came across the greatest weakness of social media, that is fact-checking in crowdsourcing. Social media is so easy because it can or cannot be true. There is nothing to lose when you retweet,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Luis said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex voiced the same concern during our conversation. \u201cI was worried the narco <\/em>would use the platform if it was successful; so we tried to figure out how to protect the platform from false posts and prevent it from being discredited,\u201d Alex said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Robles, the human rights activist and founder of Contingente<\/em> Tuiter<\/em>, differs. \u201cThere are self-control mechanisms within social networks to verify the information,\u201d he said. \u201cThe experiences are useful to get timely information.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He recalls @reynosafollow, in the state of Tamaulipas, as the first citizens\u2019 alert and information mechanism to emerge in Twitter. Faced with a lack of coverage of narco<\/em> violence, residents of Reynosa assumed this task.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, Genaro Lozano, the professor on social movements, stressed that traditional and social media complement each other. He feeds two blogs: one in the national newspaper El Universal and a personal one where he shares NGO reports with low media dissemination (http:\/\/blogs.eluniversal.com.mx\/escenari\/).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is always questioning on what is published, both in traditional and social media. Social media is more transparent and enhances accountability. It makes citizens to question the quality of information and to demand more,\u201d Genaro said firmly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the local level, media skews its coverage toward crime omitting information related to drug cartels. Mexico’s regional newspapers fail to report many of the murders, attacks on police and other violence linked to the war against drug cartels according to the report of Fundaci\u00f3n MEPI de Periodismo de Investigaci\u00f3n<\/em> presented in November 2010 (http:\/\/fundacionmepi.org\/narco-violencia.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a response to the distortion in information, the envisioned platform of Alex and Jos\u00e9 Luis, the Mexican graduate students at SIPA, also provided a space for journalists to write articles under pseudonyms; pieces that would not get published in traditional media due to editorial and self-censorship and fear of retaliation. Each journalist would get a special ID and no one, besides Alex and Jos\u00e9 Luis, would know their identity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex contacted a student from Colorado who volunteered to create the platform and operate it, while Jos\u00e9 Luis proposed the idea of the blog to four of his colleagues. <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the beginning of June 2010 and two weeks before launching the platform in Monterrey, Alex received an email from the Colorado student claiming a male voice in Spanish had threatened him by phone from a number in the US. In the email, he urged Alex to request help from the State Department and the United Nations and backed out of the project. The student immediately took down the website and the project fell apart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both Alex and Jos\u00e9 Luis were skeptical of the life threat; they still are. \u201cYou know Mexicans respond very differently to receiving a threat like that. We don\u2019t believe it,\u201d Alex said. \u201cAt the end what convinced me [to stop] was that I was risking someone else\u2019s peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Luis has a similar impression. \u201cWe both wanted to move forward, but we were only going to learn about the risk until something happened. I remained very eager to do it, but we felt discouraged to give the next step,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Luis said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A year later, Alex and Jos\u00e9 Luis have no idea on whether the student\u2019s allegation was true or not. Twenty people knew about the project and most were in the US. Neither can imagine who might have leaked information about their plans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some newspapers have platforms mapping violence, but according to Jos\u00e9 Luis, these are poorly managed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Violence has disrupted citizens\u2019 trust in both media outlets. Earlier this month, Melissa Lotzer, who runs @trackmty, the main Twitter account alerting about drug <\/em>violence in Monterrey, was accused of providing information to the narcos<\/em>. Ms. Lotzer \u201cdisappeared\u201d due to safety reasons and resumed her work after some days, according to her Twitter feed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a problem of trust. Information is not transmitted from the society to the government and from the media to the society. It\u2019s a schizophrenia,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Luis said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex characterized it as media paranoia. \u201cThere\u2019s distrust and fear,\u201d Alex said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The challenge, according to Jorge, the director and co-founder of Citivox, is that Mexicans have no unified, single message and so, information in social media becomes noise. \u201cWe are fed up with everything, but there is no common dialogue,\u201d Jorge said.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Luis agrees. \u201cWe forget narcos<\/em> are also citizens and I\u2019m very certain they know well how to use [social media],\u201d Jos\u00e9 Luis said. \u201cThey are better organized than us.\u201d