Social Media Becomes the New Front In Mexico's Drug War

An anonymous reader writes "The drug cartels operating in Mexico have often been compared to large corporations, with their own codified leadership hierarchy, recruitment methods, and accounting practices. But part of any big corporation's playbook is a marketing/PR plan. The cartels have long operated a version of those, too, by threatening journalists and killing civilians who speak up. Like any corporation these days, the drug cartels have recognized the power of social media, and they're using it more and more to propagate their messages of intimidation and violence. Quoting: 'Six days after Beltran Leyva's death, gunmen murdered family members of the only Mexican marine killed in the apartment complex siege — including the marine's mother. That same day, a fire was set at a nearby school where a banner was flown, warning that more killings would follow if the federal government made any further attempts to interfere in cartel actions. Photos of the school were then tweeted and shared in status updates — a reply to images of Beltran Leyva's corpse being shared on social media.'"

Comments

Re:Wise criminals stay in the shadows...

[FlyHelicopters]

The cartels are armed with much better weapons than AK-47s...

And the Mexican Army lacks much in the way of a modern tank force, nor would tanks do that much good in cities anyway. They are useful, but not as much as you'd think...

What might be more helpful would be a US Army invasion, but that is another matter... :)

Re:Lawmakers need to do the right thing

[DNS-and-BIND]

Ah, yes, as soon as I saw this topic I knew someone would be along to blame it all on America.

Can you imagine a world without America? There wouldn't be *any* problems, anywhere. Especially in Mexico, all of whose problems are entirely caused by the "gringos" (foreigners). Amazing, eh? When America blames its problems on foreigners, it's a ruse to divert attention from the real problems...but when Mexico does it it's different. Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to America.