26 Sep 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Sunni activist Mubarak al-Bathali has been sentenced to three months in jail by a Kuwaiti court for comments about Shiite Muslims made on his Twitter account. A few weeks ago, he was arrested by secret police, and charged with “undermining national unity” as well as “disparaging Shiites”.
26 Sep 11 | Americas, Mexico
Mexican organised drug cartels have again threatened social network users using a mutilated body. In the second incident this month, the decapitated and tortured body of a woman was found dumped in a public park in Nuevo Laredo, Taumalipas, a city on the US-Mexico border.
The body was discovered in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 24, with a hand scribbled cardboard sign left next to it. It said “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo and social networking sites, I’m The Laredo Girl, and I’m here because of my reports, and yours. For those who don’t want to believe, this happened to me because of my actions, for believing in the army and the navy. Thank you for your attention, respectfully, Laredo Girl…ZZZZ.””
The victim was identified by Morelos Canseco, the interior secretary of northern Tamaulipas, as Marisol Macias Castaneda, a newsroom manager for the Nuevo Laredo local daily newspaper Primera Hora. The newspaper has not confirmed her title, but it is believed Macias Castaneda was targeted for her contribution to social networking sites.
Apparently Macias Castro contributed reports on drug violence to the blog, Nuevo Laredo EnVivo using the handle “Laredo Girl”. ZZZZ is the signature of Mexico’s most dangerous organised crime group. The Zetas started in Taumalipas as bodyguards for the Cartel del Golfo, an organised crime group from this area. The initials, Zetas, referred to a paramilitary group that initiated its activities in the northern state of Taumalipas, first as an enforcement group for the traditional drug cartel, Cartel Del Golfo, and then toppled the leadership for the Cartel Del Golfo, and is now moving its group that can work in Mexico, the United States and Central America.
Two weeks ago, two Twitter users were also attacked and killed for using the internet to report on drug related violence.
22 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
Two people jailed for making “alarmist” posts on Twitter were freed yesterday after four weeks in prison in Mexico. Maria de Jesus Bravo, a local journalist, and maths teacher Gilberto Martinez Vera, had the charges of terrorism and sabotage against them dropped, and they walked free from jail to cheering supporters. The pair sent out Twitter messages regarding an unconfirmed drug attack on a primary school last month, and were accused of terrifying frantic parents. The charges, which can carry prison sentences of up to 30 years imprisonment, were dropped following outrage from human rights activists and free speech advocates.
15 Sep 11 | Uncategorized
Following accusations that social media were used to play a key role in the social unrest in August, representatives from Research in Motion, Twitter and Facebook came under the spotlight at the Commons Home Affairs select committee this afternoon.
Stephen Bates, Managing Director of BlackBerry’s Research in Motion, Richard Allen, Director of Policy at Facebook and Alexander McGilvray, who is responsible for public policy at Twitter were questioned by the committee, chaired by MP Keith Vaz, regarding the role of social media in the riots which spread across the country in August, and the trio insisted that all three platforms were used as a force for good.
In the midst of the unrest, calls were made to shut down social networking, particularly BlackBerry messenger, as it was suggested that this was being used to organise violence. Cutting off Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry messenger in times of unrest seems no different to the censoring this kind of media experiences in China and oppressive countries over the world.
The committee heard that should it be necessary, all three of the representatives of the social media, who work within frameworks to condone with the law, would not resist closing down social media, but did not feel that it would be necessary.
Bates, Allen and McGilvray all said that throughout the unrest in August, social media were used in a positive way – to contact family and friends to advise that users were safe, to help clean-up in the wake of the riots, and perhaps most importantly as a tool of communication, used to quell and correct rumours. McGilvray said that most of the “retweets” that occurred during and after the riots were corrections of inaccurate tweets, spreading rumours and misinformation.
The representatives from the social media stressed that as long as technology keeps advancing, the police will have to continue to adapt their methods to deal with the situations. Allen compared the developments of social media with the creation of the car – “It took the police time to catch up when thieves began using cars, the same is happening now.”
A key issue addressed by the committee was responsibility. Bates admitted that BlackBerry messenger had been used in a malicious way to organise crime, but stressed the need for balance when addressing the issue.
Allen explained that their focus on identification meant there was an accountability relating to misuse of the platform but said that there were only a handful of cases where this had occurred during the riots. McGilvray said “People come to Twitter to say things publicly and that means there is a different kind of usage.” Allen and Bates advised that they were involved with communications with the police, and McGilvray advised that as Twitter is a public forum, it was not necessary on their behalf.
McGilvray said that to lock down social media in times of social unrest would be “horrible,” stressing once again the good things that arose from the use of social media in the times of unrest.
Keith Vaz advised that there may be times when closing down social media was necessary, asking “Why should the government not use the powers to close down these networks if there is mass disorder and this is the only way to stop it happening.”
