hal tweets ·11:28 AM
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
onlyyy
Tue Dec 15,2009,
16:09 GMT
Colombian University Student Jailed for Facebook Group
Posted by Hal
Yesterday I did an interview with a a Colombian journalist writing for the Colombian news weekly Semana. She was very funny and interesting. She obsessively watches a family of oversharers who live in the Washington DC area and post everything about their lives to Flickr. She confessed this to her sister at one point, and her sister soon after saw The Peep Diaries for sale in a Barnes & Noble and bought it for her. She then decided to write an article on the subject of watching and being watched.
The reporter also told me a far more disturbing story. It’s about a university student named Nicolás Castro Prestelt who created a Facebook group called “I pledge to kill Jeronimo Uribe, son of Alvaro Uribe.” Jeronimo Uribe is the son of the popular Colombian President. (I don’t know much about Colombian politics but I gather he’s been accused of using his son-of status to do some not-so-nice-things, though there’s no official charge against him.)
After the media picked up on the group, which had all of 20 members, the group was purged from Facebook and the university student was arrested. He’s in jail now, awaiting his fate.
Obviously, starting a group encouraging people to kill, even in jest, is not very wise. At the same time, it’s doubtful this fine arts student meant any actual harm — he’s being labeled as a terrorist by the Colombian government. This is just another example of what happens when the digital peep culture of exposure and pranksterism meets the conservative world of law enforcement and government.
There are -3- Comments: , Add yours…
10:16
yeah, i mean you can’t ignore death threats however silly and unlikely they seem to be. abraham biggs (the guy who killed himself on his jtv channel) would probably still be alive if someone had actually taken his threat to kill himself live on the web seriously. that’s the problem with peep in general: everyone is trying to create drama, everyone is posturing. so how do we know when someone is actually going to act on their words? at the same time, there has to be room for satire and political dissent. this was probably a case where a legitimate anger was expressed in a very poor way. i read today that there are 80,000 plus people now fans of the guy who put italian pm Berlusconi in the hospital. does that meant they all want to attack Berlusconi? are they all terrorists who should be arrested?
blog author
12:40
I personally think there is a big difference in becoming a fan of someone who does something wrong and being the one to actually create a group calling for violence. At least when it comes to erring on the side of caution.
The drama and posturing that peep has created is actually quite dangerous. I think people are beginning to slowly realize this now. Humans are obviously not recognized for their foresight.
I agree that there should be room for political dissent, but he should have been smarter about how he displayed his anger. I guess that’s where my comment about foresight may come in. haha. It even bit me in the butt. Call me Miss Redundant.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
EXPOZINE 2011, Montreal’s 10th Annual Small Press, Comic and Zine Fair—http://t.co/3ISW3Ovx http://t.co/FlLfB6hk
Tag Cloud
Archive Months
February, 2011
January, 2011
December, 2010
November, 2010
October, 2010
September, 2010
18:44
Or maybe he might have actually done something…like you mentioned in the book about the Justin.tv suicide. No one took it seriously and something bad happened…though being jailed as a terrorist is definitely a little harsh…but it’s a good thing the authorities did actually get involved.