The War on Drugs

A short documentary, included below, was published on Youtube yesterday that showcases a new dangerous drug sold in the black market named Scopolamine. Although the movie is based in Columbia, where the drug was found, people in the United States also have had access to this drug. What's even more alarming is some have used the drug on others with criminal intentions.

One man in the video claimed that while he was under the influence of the drug, he woke up to his emptied out apartment and didn't remember a thing. When asking the doorman what happened the night before, he explained that him and three friends were moving out his stuff. The man became livid, yelling why would you let me do such a thing, and the door man replied that he told him that he was moving out with his friends.



This is an example of the more significant side effect of the drug, you lose your free will to people.

They exclaim several times in the video that this is the new date rape drug, and it looks exactly like cocaine. Horribly enough, 1 gram can kill 10-15 people. This video provides information that Americans need to know to keep aware.

However, when I searched for further news on the subject, I pulled up articles from online-only alternative news forums such as "Mail Online", "International Business Times"and "RedOrbit". How about the New York Times or Los Angeles Times, the newspapers most Americans read?




Have you read articles from these websites before?

Why isn't this news more distributed across the mass media, let alone the Internet? This information should be better disseminated so we are able to protect ourselves and know of it's existence, especially if criminals are using it against their victims' will.

The war on drugs is the right to know this knowledge immediately, to be educated and be protected from what's out there so more lives are saved in the long run.

Students waste time on youtube

There is a clear link between nonproductive students and YouTube use. The purpose of YouTube is to be able to share videos of anything at anytime. The problem with the website is that is extremely addicting. There are so  many videos to choose from and the related video choices entice people to to keep watching more. These videos have been known to keep students from doing productive activities like going to class, doing home work, and working out. Not to mention the videos on YouTube seem to be of less and less importance or significance. One such genre of useless videos are the ten hour repeat videos. A ten hour repeat video is a continuous loop of a repeated song, occurring, or activity that is posted on YouTube. Some of these repeat videos such as the "Amazing Horse" video (see link below). This video is a continuous loop of a catchy song for ten hours. The video, though entertaining, provides no practical or beneficial content to anyone yet it has almost 13 million views. It makes one wonder what people are wasting their time on these days. Why is this video so popular?  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83M60qeRyMc

Mexico Turns to Social Media and Citizen Journalism During Drug War Media Blackout

A recent article from Houston Based Blog attempts to understand the phenomena known as Blog Del Narco.

The war on drugs in Mexico has taken the lives of more thank 50,000 citizens in that country in the last six years. Journalists account for 44 of those deaths. The state of Journalism in Mexico is one of fear and complete censorship. The drug cartels have been systematically shutting down news rooms and freelance journalists by threatening to kill them and their entire families. Reporters, editors and photojournalist's bodies along with their family members, have been found along streets and sometimes hanging over bridges displaying large banners with written messages to the public known as narcomantas. At times grenades have been thrown directly in to the buildings of news rooms.

Newspapers are still being printed and news is made everyday in Mexico, the difference is, only the murder is reported. No names are used, no suspects are reported and sometimes bylines in articles are left blank. Newspaper editors have been known to approach the cartels and ask, "what would you like us to report on?" This is media coverage about the drug war in Mexico today.

The last six years however, social media has played a central role in the reporting of the drug related violence. Enter, Blog Del Narco a blog that has been up and running since 2007. What makes this blog special is the ability to stay anonymous. All that is known about the blog is that it was created by a computer science student in Northern Mexico. It is ran by a handful of editors, and moderators and it is protected by numerous firewalls that protect it's location.

This cloak of invisibility allows users to share information freely with out fear of retaliation. One can open an account and start blogging today under anonymous. Now I can shoot a video at a downtown mall where a shooting may take place and I can upload to YouTube and then post in on Blog Del Narco where I can comment on what I saw and any details of the vehicles, weapons, or identities of the individuals involved. I can warn people, do stay away from downtown  or stay of the highways.

See Video of Shootout 

This has not only proven valuable to citizens in the violent towns but it also has become a free for all information bulletin. It is believed that the site is getting up too 1million hits per months. Visitors include, private citizens, Mexican police, Mexican Federal agents, American DEA, CIA and of course the gang members themselves. cartel members will post a video of a an execution and comment on why they did it and who is next. The graphic nature of the site is what gives it part of it's credibility. The videos are not censored, the violence is raw.  

One incident occurred in 2011 where a couple of teenage boys took out cell phones while sitting on their front porch of their home. They were witnessing a shooting directly across the street. They decided to hide behind a car parked in their driveway and start filming the shootout. The five minute video showed SUVs peeling out and machine-gun fire crackling down the residential streets. Members running in and out of vehicles and eventually bodies dropping to the floor and left dead. The two boys who were cousins decided to upload the video rot YouTube as soon as they got in the house. I mean that was some great video surely it would go viral that night. What occurred next changed the way citizen journalism operated over night. The video was posted on Blog Del Narco and later viewed by the gang members involved in the shootout earlier that morning. A quick scan of the location and point of view of the camera lens, allowed the gang members to identify where the video had been shot from. The next morning, the two boys got a knock on the door.

The YouTube comments were still coming in when an R.I.P. comment read the names of the two amateur videographers.

I do not know what is going to happen in Mexico but I hope the government acts quickly to protect journalists. I also hope social media will play a larger role in the dissimanation of cartel activity in Mexico.

YouTube Parenting: The Modern Punishment

A few decades ago it was socially acceptable for parents to punish their children with violence.  A spanking or slap on the wrist to help children learn right from wrong was not seen as child abuse.  In modern society, the slightest form of physical abuse can lead to a visit from child-protective services.  A recent YouTube video demonstrates how some parents are adapting to the digital age and have reverted from violence to public embarrassment as punishment.  Tommy Jordan, the father of a teenage girl, became an internet sensation after posting a YouTube video called "Facebook Parenting: For the Troubled Teen".  In this video Jordan describes how his daughter posted an inappropriate and ungrateful  status on Facebook complaining about how her parents force her to do chores.  To punish her for this Facebook post, Jordan shoots his daughter's laptop 9 times and posts it online for the public eye.  With over 32 million Youtube views it is obvious that this video stirred controversy.  Some people believe that this video demonstrates terrible parenting and others think that Jordan's punishment was deserved.  While the morality of Jordan's punishment is subjective, one thing is certain, this video demonstrates how wide of an audience the internet reaches. In a response to his video, Jordan writes that his parents used to punish him and humiliate him in public places.  However, the internet is not just a public moment in time, this video can be viewed multiple times by people all over the world. His parenting in this video can be analyzed by psychologists and will probably follow his daughter for a very long time.  Public humiliation has been a tactic of punishment for many parents for decades and, with the advancement of technology, people have access to a much larger outlet for public humiliation.  If more parents decide to use the internet to punish their children, it may have an adverse affect on their children's future.  Internet posts are easily spread and difficult to erase so a mistake that a child makes at a young age could be public for the rest of their lives.  It is common for modern youth to post private things on the internet.  However, parents should be wiser than their children and realize that some issues are meant to be private and should not be exploited by the use of the web.  There is no question that physical abuse is wrong, but bruises do not leave scars like emotional humiliation.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kl1ujzRidmU

To join Kony 2012, or not to join?

Let’s get one thing straight: Joseph Kony is a bad man. A very, very bad man. Thanks to the founders of the Invisible Children, whose goal is to bring to light the horrifying atrocities committed by the South African terrorist leader, anyone with access to the internet and a Facebook account can pretty much agree to this fact. What was once barely covered in traditional news has now become widespread opinion because of their use of alternative media campaigns. Invisible Children’s most recent strategy has been in the Kony 2012 video that went viral within days of its release onto the internet. In the 30 minutes it outlined the most compelling call to action for all social media enthusiasts. I mean, it is hard to argue against a man who has not only included in his video the heart-wrenching testimonial from a former LRA soldier, but who has also enlisted the help of his ever-so-adorable five year old son to drive the point home. And they were highly successful—at least, for the first couple of weeks.

However, since its popularity grew, Invisible Children has been under heavy fire. Youtube commentators along with mainstream media have done their best to highly publicize the dirt recently pulled up on the foundation and its leaders. Before long, Invisible Children had turned from a revolutionary charity, which would make a huge difference in the world, to one that had lost much of its credibility. However, what has remained constant through all these turn of events is the idea that Joseph Kony is still a very, very bad man. Notice that most critiques of the Kony 2012 movement, just like this one, begin with that disclaimer. So although they still back the charity’s initial goal, what is the real reason for people so quickly turning their backs on Invisible Children?

It is because no one likes being viewed as a product. Now, although the organization made a valiant effort to take advantage of new forms of communication to spread their cause, they still had a very old fashioned idea of how people passively receive media. Invisible Children had an inspiring message, but as soon as they explicitly tried to lay claim over people’s social media habits, they were basically asking for heavy backlash. They attempted to gain control over internet users for use as their own weapon, and many people were simply unwilling to become a victim of “the hype.” So people used their own investigative power, through platforms such as tweeting, blogging, and vlogging, to question the organization and the online movement that they felt threatened by. It wasn’t long before they had found what they were looking for.

This is similar to Axel Brun’s description of tactical media, and how users of a guerilla media strategy often have a temporary place as second-tier media sources. They attempted to start a political movement by exploiting the current media paradigm in aggressive ways, lacking both the experience and authority necessary to become trusted sources of information. So what’s the lesson here? If you are trying to get that kind of power in our age of free-flow information, you had better have a spotless record—which we see now that they did not. Basically, instead of being the answer to Invisible Children’s ultimate goals, their popularity had backfired on them.

Now, although Invisible Children still has the support of millions, their aim to completely dominate the internet was definitely short-lived. These days, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and they could not assume that just because they made a fairly informative and emotional video people would not do research of their own and formulate rebuttals. Audiences now have a say in what is considered “proper” media, and are distrustful of anyone who would appear to take that away from them, or, in this case, would render them voiceless in an online movement. Regardless of whether or not the accusations of Invisible Children are true or not, as proponents of new media, they have a challenge ahead of them if they wish for their Kony 2012 campaign to move beyond what could become just a momentary fad of activism.

Original video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Negative responses:

http://www.stand-news.co.uk/kony-2012-the-worst-campaign/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DO73Ese25Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCK30wUhXPw&feature=related