December 28, 2016 Wednesday
Location : enroute to Fujairah UAE
Lately I
had been diverting my attention and loneliness to social activism.
recently
the events in the maritime community at the moment have been turbulent, or more
like a "social media civil war" amongst Filipino sailors . It all
started when a Worker Union leader named "Nelson Ramirez" (the person
I mentioned on my journal entry February 2015) made an insulting statement and
declared that "people who used a referral / backer system , to get
employed are nothing more but a Pathetic class type of people" and that
"only people who came from elite maritime schools like PMMA, MAAP, Nyk etc
are the only ones worthy of being a sailor"
This caused
a huge uproar on maritime college students in the social media, and immediately
the topic in nelson Ramirez face book group became trending. He received lots
of criticism and from these kids and, as a retaliation he tried to suppress the
freedom of speech by kicking out / banning FB users and critics on his Face
book Group - which eventually lead more outrage not only to college students
but to other Filipino Sailors as well.
And that
was the start of the first internet social media gun smoke, and a few minutes
later I saw a post on another Facebook group , saying to the public that
maritime college students should rise up against Ramirez. Although I'm not a
college kid anymore, I do personally support their cause and probably because
out of personal vengeance (as what happened to
me by the hands of UFS and Ramirez, when I complained on CF Sharp, see
"the dark side of UFS entry" ). I was the first to respond on
the call and immediately drafted out a propaganda speech to be posted on any
known seaman's Facebook group that is not controlled by nelson Ramirez. The
propaganda speech I made is just basically baseless accusation, but in some
extent maybe even half right.
As for
safety of my identity , I Figured that I should use a dummy account instead,
and use one dummy account I haven't used in a long time and as soon as I was
finished with the speech, I posted it immediately, My main goal here is to fuel
the desire of kids for revenge against the insult Ramirez said in Facebook .
After a few hours , I received a positive feedback to the readers. Everybody in
the social media is in an uproar, and was motivated and continued to bombard
nelson Ramirez with hate remarks in the social media, even on his FB group
"TINIG NG MARINO". In fact I may have even given some of the other FB
user the basis on why they should hate Ramirez and gave them an impression that
he is an extortionist / Mafia kind of guy. The speech was perfectly brilliant,
and made him very infamous to the angry crowd.
Of course
Ramirez responded on his FB group "Tinig Ng Marino" with a brutal
crackdown on his critics and summarily kicked and banned scores of angry fb
users, even people with neutral comments were not spared on the crackdown and
also ended up being kicked or banned - which is good in some extent that it
added more numbers to the angry people against Nelson Ramirez. The more he
indiscriminately kicks / bans people - the more the numbers are added on the
people rebelling against him, very beneficial in spreading all the hate.
This
continued on for a number of days and I was busy also in spreading my speech in
almost every seaman fb group I could find. To add more as an extra effect, I
made a simple poster to cement the impression to the public to make him look
like he's a traitor - it was just a simple poster made from MS paint program
nothing special and not too complicated to use. I spread it using a dummy
account and make it viral as much as possible on any known FB Filipino seaman
groups out there.
The public
effect when I posted it on the social was a tremendous success and soon gained
public attention and infamy amongst UFS fanatics. Nelson Ramirez was so furious
that he was posted on his public group an announcement challenging the person
behind it to face him in the open and show evidence of the accusation on the
picture, Of course this was only a ruse for him knowing that he can't clearly
identify who is behind it - total protection on being anonymous. Whatever he did was already too late and most
people who already saw it , had recognize the accusations and implanted it on
their minds to be a fact. Total
character assassination, He was so disoriented on the attacks that he was
indiscriminately pointing the blame to anyone he saw as a threat like college
students , critics - anything that’s opposed to his idea's
For me
vengeance was very satisfying and totally nailed Ramirez to the core, Obviously
the black propaganda I was spreading was short lived but successful victory. A
few days after I spread the speech and the picture , the dummy account I was
using was disabled - probably UFS fanatics have to report to face book to
permanently shut it down. Although that the dummy account was totally destroyed
in the process, it is considered to be a calculable loss and worth the trade
rather than the enemy will know my personal details and use them for retaliation on my private life.
Given with
its success, I'm planning to create a blog - one which is totally
"Unblockable" and out of reach on any jurisdiction of Facebook.
Realizing that facebook has limitations in propaganda such as post or dummy
account getting destroyed. I plan to use a blog as a means on spreading
propaganda.
