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

Mandate real names, a great idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes good folks have something to hide. Their identities from bad folks.

Lawmakers need to do the right thing

[Anonymous Coward]

All it would take is a single strike of the pen to remove the cartels' entire purpose for existing, along with the massive societal benefits of no more overcrowding in prisons, no more lives being ruined because of absurd and unjust laws, the possible breakthroughs which can never happen so long as the research is illegal, and the reversal of the militarization of police forces around the country. Prohibition is a proven failure, and factually creates criminals out of innocent people and problems where there were none before.

There is absolutely no benefit to prohibition (and even if there were, they're negligible compared to all the problems it creates) - it should be repealed immediately.

Re:Wise criminals stay in the shadows...

[TheCarp]

If you think that is easy and cheap....I have this bridge in NYC for sale, and man is it a steal!

You seriously think someone putting up those posters wont be found hanging from a brige with posters nailed to his corpse? These Cartels are not street gangs like we have street gangs now. They are better armed, better funded, and in some cases....are the police.

Shit the Zetas, ever heard of them? They were started by police.

There is no easy way out now that these monsters have been created. Created by naieve people seeking simple solutions. People who thought they could enforce away drug problems.... they failed to change addiction rates (their basic goal) and instead, created violent street gangs...here and around the world.

Now this is the result. The same result as alcohol prohibition gave us, except amplified because instead of a short 15 or so years, its been going on for generations now.

Frankly, every single one of those drug warriers who created this situation deserve to be strung up from their necks in appreciation for the mess they made while trying and failing to control people's desires.