New America Media, News Report, Louis Nevaer, Posted: Sep 16, 2011

MERIDA, Mexico – After more than four years of being passive spectators as government forces have battled the drug cartels, Mexicans are using social media to take back their nation’s civil society.

The so-called passive nature of the Mexican character has long been cited as the primary reason for the slow nature of progress in this nation of 110 million people, which ranks as the 14th largest economy in the world.

But if this passive tendency of the Mexican character – first noted by Maximilian in the 19th century – has reduced Mexicans to mere spectators as President Felipe Calderon has sent the military to battle the competing drug cartels, social media has now uprooted the equation. And the losers are the cartels.

In a sign that Mexicans are turning to social media to take back their civil society – and siding with the government against the cartels – earlier this week the bodies of a man and a woman were hung from a bridge in the city of Nuevo Laredo, near the U.S. border. A message on one of the bodies read: “This will happen to all the Internet snitches (Frontera al Rojo Vivo, Blog Del Narco, or Denuncia Ciudadano). Be warned, we’ve got our eye on you. Signed, Z.”

The message could not have been clearer had it been sent over Twitter: the drug cartels recognize that, in addition to battling the Mexican Army, they are now battling the tens of millions of Mexican citizens with Twitter and Facebook accounts.

In September 2010, traditional media – the largest newspaper in violence-ravaged Ciudad Juarez – appeared to have capitulated to the drug cartels. “We want you to explain to us what you want from us. What are we supposed to publish or not publish, so we know what to abide by? You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling,” read the front-page editorial in El Diario directed to the drug cartels operating in that border city.

This kind of intimidation of the press stunned the rest of the nation, more so for the fact that Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists who cover organized crime. Mexico’s Census, known as INEGI, reported that almost a quarter million people had moved out of Ciudad Juarez over the past decade, one of the few cities in Mexico to see such a dramatic loss of residents, which is normally associated with natural disasters, such as the population drop in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

That seeming capitulation had chilling repercussions, where Mexican newspapers report on violence, but few are willing to engage in investigative journalism.

The void created by the absence of an active citizenry is now being filled by Social Media. What began as disparate Twitter postings in the city of Reynosa, near the border, has become a spontaneous flow of citizen information about the movements of drug lords, suspicious safe houses and activities that are empowering Mexico’s Army and intelligence services. “Hashtags,” which link individual Twitter postings are fast emerging as a people-driven news service. The bundling of social media tweets and postings first gained notice when #reynosafollow emerged as a popular outlet for drug cartel activity there. Since then, two other significant Hashtags have emerged: #mtyfollow and #verfollow, for the cities of Monterrey and Veracruz, respectively.

Throughout Mexico, newspapers have reported that the two individuals murdered and hung from the bridge were slain as a warning to others to desist “denouncing criminals on the Internet."

There is always the danger that misinformation will be swept up into these hashtags, of course, but the sheer number of them, more than a quarter million so far since the phenomenon emerged, gives confidence that accuracy will prevail, much as it does on Wikipedia, which relies on the public’s contributions to entries.

What is at stake here is that, in the same way that Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad), started by poet and writer Javier Sicilia, whose son was slain in the crossfire shootout between the military and drug cartels, has galvanized citizen participation, so has social media. Sicilia is in the midst of a nationwide caravan of peace, traveling throughout Mexico, where every detail is being posted on Facebook and in hundreds of Twitter postings. “The media (traditional and social) are here and they cover us how they want and how they can,” Sicilia said.

This civic empowerment is new, and galvanizing. In the same way that “iReports” has become a civic phenomenon in the United States – in which viewers send reports and photos to disparate organizations from CNN to the Los Angeles Times – Hashtags are emerging as a way for Mexican citizens to become active participants in reporting on the drug cartels and the activities of their members.

Since the phenomenon began earlier this year, the Mexican military has moved in swiftly, scoring major arrests and decisive military actions against the cartels. Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence that drug syndicates are repositioning their operations in the United States and Guatemala, in effect surrendering territorial claims to Mexico. This week’s gruesome act of terror evident in the two bodies hung from a bridge reaffirm the consensus that it is the cartel that is taking a stand against Mexican civic society.

In the war on drugs, it is the cartels that fear social media, not Mexico’s government – and certainly not the Mexican people.