As the drug war in Mexico ramps up and, thanks to threats and outright killings, the media have closed down, Mexicans are turning to Twitter for news of threats, incidents, and dangerous no-go zones in the city of Reynosa. The city itself has created its own Twitter account. The Texas Observer reports:
Residents created the hashtag #reynosafollow to warn one another of dangers in the city. Shortly thereafter, the city of Reynosa created a Twitter account at @DIRGOBREYNOSA to alert residents of security risks and to dispel rumors. Using Twitter, the city government and residents can send a quick warning from anywhere in the city.
On August 24, at around 5:00 p.m. armed convoys of cartel members terrorized Reynosa with at least three blockades and grenade attacks on the Jabil maquiladora where hundreds of workers were leaving for the day. In the end, six people died, including an innocent motorist. Seven more were wounded. Twitter users throughout the two hour-long-battle posted photos and even tried to map the coordinates of the narco-blockades throughout their city. At one point, the map looked as if all of Reynosa was under siege. Some people stuck in traffic, had mistakenly thought there were blockades up ahead and in the hysteria of the moment reported it to #reynosafollow.
The city of Reynosa posted warnings throughout the battle. Altogether, more than 600 “tweets” were posted on the violence during the two hours of chaos. The next day, local media were silent on the gun battle.
You can sample the tweets here.
Using Twitter, YouTube and various blogs the residents of Reynosa pieced together the events of August 24. It is a limited picture of events, however. Twitter is only available to those in Reynosa and other parts of Mexico who can afford the expensive data plans needed for web access on their cell phones. For instance, in a city of nearly 600,000, the city of Reynosa’s Twitter account only had 9,313 followers as of mid-September. It’s debatable whether Twitter is helping save lives in Reynosa, but at least it’s empowering citizens with information during a dark time in their city’s history.
