How did you find out about 11-M? It was not through Twitter – it was founded in 2006 – and the big lie with which the PP government surrounded the attacks did not spread through social networks, but quite the opposite. In the absence of a smartphone and a refresh of the timeline, it was the old Nokia and its SMS that ended the imposture. That day, official sources lost their 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, which went from “it was ETA” transmitted by José María Aznar to the newspaper directors on the day of the attack to becoming a “conspiracy theory.” ” that stretched like a piece of gum. @nachoorovio has refuted it from La Vanguardia and Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez exposes it: “ETA has been convicted with twenty times less evidence than in 11-M (…) We have 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 lying have triumphed if Twitter had existed? The SMS that served to summon thousands of people in front of the PP headquarters would have had a counterpart on the networks if they had been tweets. “Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the Madrid attack four times and the government is hiding it. Pass it on”, “Aznar de rositas? Do they call it a day of reflection and Urdaci working? Today 13M, at 6pm. PP Headquarters, c/Génova 13. No matches. Silence for the truth. Pass it on!”.
For the first time, the mobile phone was used to disseminate information outside the officialdom of parties and governments. The person who sent the first message remains anonymous although Pablo Iglesias explained in 2014 that he left his surroundings. Of the first 17 people who received that SMS, five ended up ten years later on the political council of Podemos.
In the demonstrations on the 12th, people shouted: “Who was it?” 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 each person read what they want to read. The “pass it on” would have been a digital pitched battle and the extreme right, there, wins.
