Even Members of the Mexican Drug Cartels Take Facebook Selfies Joseph Cox - VICE
go to original November 14, 2013

Not all cartels want to be seen as the bad guys these days. After Hurricane Ingrid tore across northeastern Mexico in September, the Gulf Cartel uploaded this video to YouTube that showed them distributing aid to those in need. It quickly went viral and has racked up nearly half a million views. (ayudando2013)

Members of Mexico's drug cartels are really starting to harness the power of the internet, using it to run positive PR campaigns, post selfies with their pistols, and hunt down targets by tracking their movements on social media.

Antoine Nouvet from the SecDev Foundation, a Canadian research organization, has been working with drug policy think-tank the Igarapé Institute on a project called the Open Empowerment Initiative. The project looks into "how cyberspace is empowering individuals and rewiring relations in Latin America" and has uncovered a wealth of information about how cartels are using the internet to their own nefarious ends.

The first point Antoine touched on was how cartels have utilized cyberspace in much the same way as a TV company's PR department might: "They advertise their activities, they conduct public relations initiatives, and they have basically turned themselves into their own media company," he explained. "Colombia's cartel groups or drug traffickers in Myanmar in the 1990s were very sophisticated at public relations, but they didn't have this massive broadcasting platform."

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