Social networks are amazing for their efficiency, usefulness and power, at the same time that they also shock us when they nestle hatred, intrigue, the attempt to subvert order or are monopolized to denigrate people, institutions and countries.
By Roberto Morejón
Social networks are amazing for their efficiency, usefulness and power, at the same time that they also shock us when they nestle hatred, intrigue, the attempt to subvert order or are monopolized to denigrate people, institutions and countries.
The MORENA coalition denounced the launching of what it described as a "digital mercenary war" against the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the head of government in the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum.
According to investigations, the attacks are supported by accounts on the social network Twitter backed by an investment of close to seven million Mexican pesos.
Forty-nine percent of the scrutinized messages are promoted by accounts related to characters linked to the right.
This is not exclusive to Mexico because with this type of campaigns, mainly in networks, the international right wing politically attacks progressive leaders or catapults extremist leaders, as happened in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro.
The objective is none other than to discredit, or as they say today, to digitally lynch the public and physical profile of people, institutions and collectivities, as if extrapolating the traditional stoning.
Such procedures resort to mockery, falsehoods, mockery, ironies, humiliations, without the response of the societies or of the attacked ones arriving with sufficient speed and drive.
Of course, the purpose of digital liquidation has a recurring ally, false information or fake news, a resource designed to present as true a lie or a distorted truth.
What some call the disinformation industry is supported by powerful corporate companies, trained in the manipulation of public opinion.
No one denies the advantages of the Internet and of having networks for learning, leisure, culture, contacts, exchanging ideas, meeting new friends or quick and direct meetings with relatives.
But the use of platforms for the annihilation of others, based on anonymity and false accounts, calls into question the original purpose of these channels and forces the self-regulation of societies, as well as a response that may even be legal from the victims.
