How did you find out about 11-M? It wasn’t because of Twitter – it was founded in 2006 – and the big lie with which the PP government surrounded the attacks didn’t run through social networks, quite the opposite. In the absence of smartphones and timeline refresh, it was the old Nokia and its SMS that put an end to the imposture. That day, official sources lost credibility. The specials for the 20th anniversary of the Atocha massacre –
That of 11-M was Trumpism before Trump, a fake news that lasted for years, that went from the “it was ETA” transmitted by José María Aznar to the directors of the newspapers on the day of the attack to become -se in a “conspiracy theory” that dragged on for years and years. @nachoorovio has refuted it from La Vanguardia and the judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez strips it: “ETA has been convicted with twenty times less evidence than in 11-M (…) We reached ridiculous situations” . @diostuitero does not forgive: “How a government lied to an entire country in the face of the worst terrorist attack in the history of Europe”.
Would the lie have triumphed if Twitter had existed? The SMS that were used to summon thousands of people to the headquarters of the PP would have had a counterpart in the networks if they had been tweeted. “Al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for the attack in Madrid four times and the government is hiding it. Pass it”, Aznar escapes? Is it a day of reflection and Urdaci working? Today 13M, at 6pm. Seu PP, c/Génova 13. No parties. Silence for the truth. Pass it!”. For the first time, the mobile phone was used to disseminate information unrelated to the officialdom of parties and governments. The person who sent the first message remains anonymous even though Pablo Iglesias explained in 2014 that he left his environment. Of the first 17 people who received that SMS, five ended up on Podemos’ political council ten years later.
At the demonstrations on the 12th they shouted: “Who has it been?”. The next day, a day of reflection, SMS traffic grew by 20% in Spain. On Sunday, election day, the increase was 40%, as reported by Bloomberg at the time. The mobile phone was consolidated as a citizen political tool, but the parties also learned to use it. Today, messages are segmented and the algorithm makes everyone read what they want to read. The “pass it” would have been a digital pitched battle and the far right, here, wins.
