GUNSMOKE

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.