Mexico Considers Clamping Down on Twitter

[Derechos]

Mexico Considers Clamping Down on Twitter
Tuesday 02 February 2010

by: Michael E. Miller | GlobalPost

Mexicans are using Twitter to avoid drunk-driving checkpoints. Drug cartels might be using it too. Does that justify restricting social networking sites?

Mexico - Mexico has racked up its fair share of menacingly named outlaws in a three-year drug war: the Zetas, Aztecas and even a band of female assassins called the Panthers.

Now, if the government gets its way, another name will also make the wanted list: los Twitteros.

That's right. Twitter users are fast becoming public enemy No. 1, at least in Mexico City, where they have angered authorities by warning one another of roadside "alcoholimetro" — or Breathalyzer — checkpoints set up by the police.

But the case against the Twitteros is about more than alcohol.

Mexico is, after all, a country at war — at least according to President Felipe Calderon, who launched the crackdown on drug cartels shortly after taking office. Three years later, the streets of border cities like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana remain full of soldiers. In many ways, the government is still playing catch-up to the nation's criminals.

In this context, the issue of the Twitteros has quickly expanded into an argument over whether public safety takes priority over free speech in a country struggling to contain serious social ills. Fearing that kidnappers and drug cartels use Twitter, Facebook or MySpace to communicate, the Mexican government is considering a bill to restrict social networking websites and to set up a police force to monitor them.


http://www.truthout.org/mexico-considers-clamping-down-twitter56589

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Mexican government doesn't want any information getting out, apparently.

They've undoubtedly had their wealthy right-wing corporations controlling their media in Mexico, as well. It's an entrenched pattern throughout the Americas. What a hideous shame.

Twitter was probably one of the only ways non-corporate censored information was getting to the outside world successfully and quickly.

Here's an article I saw earlier today, regarding assassinated journalists in Mexico:

Journalist killed in Mexico; third this year
AP
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) -- Gunmen have slain a Mexican journalist -- the third such killing so far this year -- and a top prosecutor said yesterday there are few clues.

Albertano Guinto, the acting attorney general in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, said it was not yet clear if the death of Jorge Ochoa Martinez was linked to his work as director of El Sol de la Costa, a small newspaper that covers mostly local politics and community issues south-east of Acapulco.

Ochoa Martinez was shot in the face as he left a food stand in the town of Ayutla on Friday.

Two other Mexican journalists were killed in early January, and 12 reporters were killed in Mexico during 2009.

The governmental National Human Rights Commission said that 60 journalists have been killed since 2000, with eight others kidnapped or vanished.

More:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Journalist_7383652