thedailywhat:

This Is Important, You Should Know About It of the Day: A pair of gruesome murders in  Mexico attributed to the Zetas drug cartel were apparently meant to serve as a warning to bloggers and Twitter users who use their respective platforms to report on drug-related violence.

“This will happen to all the Internet snitches,” read a sign posted above the mutilated bodies of a young man and woman strung up beneath pedestrian overpass in Nuevo Laredo.

The banner was signed with a “Z” for Los Zetas — an extremely dangerous criminal organization that have been active in the area for over a decade.

Specifically mentioned in the banner were two websites dedicated to anonymous postings about drug violence: Frontera al Rojo Vivo (Red Hot Border) and El blog del Narco (the Tipster Blog).

Targeting reporters and journalists is nothing new for drug cartels — over 40 have been slain since 2004 — but this is believed to be the first time a cartel has gone after bloggers and online forum contributors.

“After shutting up part of the Mexican press,” tweeted Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas director Rosental C. Alves,” the Zetas criminals have now started killing people to shut up social media, too.”

The CNN report below has more:

[cnn / wapo / @rosental.]