Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Mexico’s Drug War Culture Jumps from Streets to Web

By Juan David Leal
The gory images of drug-related violence in Mexico are no longer limited to the streets, with scores of blogs and Web sites popping up to cover the carnage, and criminals often posting photos and videos documenting their deeds.

Several Web sites and blogs post news reports culled from traditional media outlets, photos of bodies and commentaries.

Other types of blogs, however, publish content provided by criminals, turning into sites for heated debates involving people who claim to belong to one or another drug cartel and threaten purported rivals.

At least three Web sites call themselves “Blog del Narco,” having URLs featuring different types of registrations, and others housed on blogging sites like Blogger or Wordpress, with one offering a “narco chat.”

These Web sites post videos of supposed interrogations of rival drug traffickers, torture sessions, shootouts, photographs featuring explicit images and even footage of the beheadings of suspected criminals.

Purported cartel members often make threats on the Web sites, vowing to hunt down and kill those who post comments critical of their criminal organizations.

“I come here because it’s an open forum, where I hear about what nobody wants to talk about,” a user calling himself “Manitas” said in a posting on one of the Web sites that also congratulated the site’s operator for not being a “sellout.”

Some people claim to be drug traffickers and sign with the name of a cartel.

“We are not against the people, we protect the people from those types of people who want to harm them, that’s why we need you to support us too,” a posting by CDG (the Spanish acronym for the Gulf cartel) said, referring to Los Zetas.

Los Zetas, the former armed wing of the Gulf cartel, is now locked in a war with its ex-employer in several parts of Mexico.

About 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006.

Some traditional media outlets used to publish daily tallies of killings and kept monthly and quarterly counts of violent crimes.

Media outlets, moreover, often published messages left by gangs with the bodies of rivals, and reporters used criminal slang in stories.

Around 50 media outlets, out of the more than 700 operating in Mexico, agreed in March to follow common guidelines in covering the war on drugs in an effort to avoid becoming “involuntary spokesmen” for criminals.

The media companies agreed to “act professionally,” stick to the facts, properly cast reports, not prejudge the guilty, protect victims and minors, protect journalists and urge citizens to play a role in fighting crime, among other measures.

The blogs, meanwhile, have mushroomed, with operators vowing to present information without an editorial filter and in its crude form.

Efe tried to contact the administrators of several Web sites without any success.

Some Web sites have posted mission statements.

“Reporting on what’s really going on in Mexico, a country that is tied up and which many think lacks a memory, while some of us do have one,” one Web site’s mission statement says.

The founders of the Web site, created on March 2, 2010, describe themselves as “two young men who are fighting to objectively let people know what is going on” and are specialists “in the fields of computers and journalism, respectively.”

“We make known the acts of violence that have made Mexican society live a reality that until recently was found in the shadows,” the Web site’s founders said, adding that their “principal source of information has been people who work with facts and materials.”

Source: EFE

10 comments:

  1. So what's the point of this article? The reporter acts as though this is a new phenomenon but this mushrooming happened at least 1 yr ago. So in essence this like most of the articles on this site are just regurgitated non-news that help to create a misinformed perspective in new viewers and just plain simple frustration on repeat viewers...oh and yet more cyber ammo for a handful of BB loyalists who have nothing better to do but type "yeah America!" and "Send the US Marines to kick their asses" and "Wetbacks" etc. etc. etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe it not his job to fuckin' only entertain you dude. Get over yourself. Hint: Skip the shit you already know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. At aug. 24 10:16-- easy for you to say Ponk.. Maybe you should try enlisting in the marines little maricon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Uh pretty one sided with the 'BB loyalist' crap. Most of the mindless posts on here read "this is the american peoples fault for consuming" or "the war on drugs is created by the government to fuel the prison system" or how about this one "legalize drugs and this all goes away". The left wing, the right wing....they r both retarded, so whichever side ur on, rest assured ur annoying to all the level headed ppl on this site. Case in point: the first post

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow. It's a plus when they can write spanish but reading english? they must be from el paso.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @ 10:16, what's your point? All the article talks about is the way that certain blogs are siding with certain cartels. Are they on their payroll? maybe, maybe not. But by the end of the day those blogs are showing us a window of the war that is going on in Mexico, without filters. If it wasn't for those blogs we would have no clue of things that are happening in Acapulco, Sinaloa, and Tamaulipas. Hell, most Americans have no clue what is going on in Mexico. They think the war is between the government and the cartels, but in reality it is a war between cartels and the politicians that support them.. Ex. Juarez, we have the municipal police and la linea fighting the federales and gente nueva. Which explains why it was the Federal police that arrested "El Diego".

    ReplyDelete
  7. We need links! Please post links for these blogs! I need more information! And why does BB make me click "Post Comment" 3 times before it takes?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Whoever said if the US stops consuming things will change, it's to late for change, the criminal enterprise is here to stay, drugs are a part but extortion ......,and so on.
    I'm wondering what the addiction rate is in Mexico now?
    After all retail sales are big busniess also.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, refer to policy for more information.
Envía fotos, vídeos, notas, enlaces o información
Todo 100% Anónimo;

borderlandbeat@gmail.com