Elthon Rivera Cruz

Mahatma Gandhi said that humanity can be freed from violence only through nonviolence. This idea, said by one of the most important activists in the history of nonviolent civil resistance, serves as the basis for this article that addresses the violent methods used by the Nicaraguan government to repress the civilian population that opposes it through peaceful actions. specifically against the digital violence promoted by the regime. It is worth asking, then, how it is possible to confront this type of violence from the ideas and practices of nonviolence. This approach requires, however, a sociopolitical context that describes the current situation of the country.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front, better known by its acronym FSLN, is the political party responsible for the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, who have remained in power since 2007. This political organization, which presents itself as a party of Left, has always been characterized by its tendency to use violence as a method to confront conflicts. Historically, the FSLN has been responsible for wars in the seventies and eighties of the last century and was a participant in large violent protests in the nineties and early 2000s. The FSLN has always proven to be an organization whose line of action to obtain its objectives has been based on a series of anti-values ​​such as the use of violence. However, within the framework of the current sociopolitical crisis that broke out in 2018, the Nicaraguan population in protest, with a large participation of youth, chose not to enter the battlefield of the dictatorship and tried not to repeat the patterns. of violence as a mechanism of social resistance—we began to opt for the path of unarmed civil resistance. Citizens were equipped with various methods of nonviolent action in the streets such as marches, sit-ins, pickets, artistic activities, satire, among others. This type of civic action was maintained as much as possible, but the magnitude of the use of lethal force by the regime was rapidly restricting any space for citizen action, forcing the population to take refuge in another trench, one that It would allow her to continue expressing herself while keeping her safer: the digital route was the best option.

At the beginning, the Ortega regime had a great disadvantage in the digital channel. The majority of the Nicaraguan population, which is a young citizenry, managed to make digital media their zone of action and refuge. In that sphere, physical violence did not reach. Since this form of violence most identifies the strength of the Sandinista government, it found itself in a scenario in which it did not have as much strength.

The nonviolent actions on social networks by the opposition population were diverse, from infographics and articles to podcasts, virtual vigils and boycotts, among other types of different methods that the population managed to implement thanks to digital technology. This bore fruit: protest campaigns reached national and international society. In this way the regime was increasingly exposed as a dictatorship responsible for atrocious crimes.

When the regime strengthened its digital violence, it began with espionage from social networks, threats directed by paramilitaries and fanatics of the dictatorship against opposition members and their families. He soon established complex teams to develop a strong virtual attack program. They did this by implementing bot labs and troll farms aimed at monitoring people not sympathetic to the regime and harassing them to instill fear in them. Hand in hand with these groups created by the government and equipped with modern technologies, plans were developed to distribute fake news, public accusations of false crimes against opponents and the spread of hate messages from the leaders of the dictatorship – Rosario Murillo being his wife. by Daniel Ortega, one of the main figures in the production and distribution of this type of messages. On the other hand, the Legislative Branch, also at the service of the regime, approved a law that criminalized virtual demonstrations and freedom of expression and information (Cybercrime Law). With all this, the Ortega regime managed to establish its digital violence plan.

Many people and organizations have been affected by the attacks of digital violence carried out by the Sandinista dictatorship. For example, in 2020, the Arias Foundation for Human Peace and Progress, a Costa Rican institution that has been following the crisis in Nicaragua, reported cyber attacks by the Nicaraguan government. Similarly, a year before the Arias Foundation’s complaints, the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported attacks on its websites by the government, using thousands of bots. The incident was described as an attack on freedom of expression and the press. Through social networks, many activists and human rights defenders have also been harassed and threatened, this being part of the psychological torture of which they have been victims.

In these scenarios, it is important to recognize that digital violence must be counteracted with nonviolent actions, from virtuality it is possible to do so. It must be kept in mind that the issue of security, one of the characteristics of civic and peaceful action, applies to both in-person and virtual activities, since there can also be danger on social networks and other digital media. In this sense, it is quite useful to learn about cybersecurity. Currently, there are many free and easily accessible resources to train on this topic, which, among other things, includes preventing our location from being public, not sharing home addresses or those of other family members, as well as verifying the veracity of the information that is shared. One of the mechanisms used to confuse and even violate entire populations is fake news. It is necessary to define the sources of information, this can be achieved by following the official accounts of the news media and not sharing information from dubious sources, reviewing the list of contacts and people who follow us on social networks and eliminating those who can be identified. as dangerous or unknown, report fake accounts that pretend to be another person or organization, take evidence of the threats received and report the account from which it was received — it is not advisable to respond to these types of messages. The actions that can be carried out to maximize digital security are very varied.

Violence must be reported in any space it occurs, and in the digital sphere it is possible to make complaints and obtain good results. For example, when Daniel Ortega established the troll farm, several affected people began to report these events. The complaint reached the international media, it became a topic of interest and this in itself is already a nonviolent achievement. As a result of this, the company Facebook (Meta) managed to counteract the dictatorship’s trolls on social networks, almost a thousand accounts and more than a hundred pages of the regime were canceled.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the dictatorship seeks to position itself in the virtual sphere and for this it needs, like any other organization, to achieve reach and views of its content. This means that although their messages are aimed at reaching their followers and gaining new followers, they do not prevent opponents from also accessing them. When opponents react to the regime’s provocations they are contributing to a greater reach of the publication, if you follow these accounts and mark any like or its derivatives, in some way you contribute to other people seeing it and also react, spreading the provocation and increasing its activity. Instead it is better to ignore the content. If you want to do something about it, you can implement civil resistance campaigns on networks, for example, countering the message. This means that, if the dictatorship distributes messages of hate and violence, civic actors can increase their publications of content of friendship, love, tolerance and peace, demonstrating to the general population that they have an attitude and political expression different from the regime. . Another way is the boycott, mentioned above. If specific accounts, pages or posts are reported in a massive and organized manner, the content of the post may be blocked.

Creativity must be used in digital civic resistance; technology allows hundreds of audiovisual contents to be created that have a fairly wide distribution margin on social networks. Nicaragua has a predominantly young population, which means a significant number of users on these networks. Achieving a mechanism to confront digital violence is possible with nonviolence, without forgetting the best allies in these spaces: cybersecurity and creativity.

Elthon Rivera Cruz

Activist for human rights, academic freedom, nonviolent action and peacebuilding. President and founder of the Bridges Initiative for the Students of Nicaragua (Ipen).

Text made in alliance with FES and published on June 14, 2023

Translated by Damian Vasquez