MEXICO.- For the second consecutive year, social media became the medium by which President Peña Nieto was insulted, and the hashtag #ChingueAsuMadreEPN (loosely translated as "screw your mother EPN" became a worldwide trending topic.

This weekend, in honor of Mother's Day, a multitude of messages and internet memes became the main topic of conversation for the day and had been proposed many days before. The national social media topic was so popular that it became a worldwide trending topic. Unlike the first round of the so-called "national insult day", this time around the controversial hashtag could not be censured.

The messages contained diverse protests in relation to the recently approved reforms, the stagnant economic recovery, and criticisms of him and his family, other bureaucrats and ex-bureaucrats, and other public interest topics. It is currently estimated that the hashtag was used more than one hundred thousand times on Twitter this Saturday.

What provoked this? Without a doubt, President Peña Nieto has become one of the biggest targets on social media. Throughout his short span as President and his political career, it has been easy to criticize his fumblings, but would it have been more effective to take to the streets instead of just criticizing him on social media?

This week, the website Binomio 1+4 published an editorial article discussing how the country has preferred to turn the President into its favorite villain — reasons abound, but it also highlights that there is much more that could be done to bring about a more effective transformation.

"I insist, we have every reason to doubt, more so when the president is a member of the PRI — the party that invented social immobilization and civil apathy. The history of the 20th century is there as proof. What we need to do is elevate the quality of civic participation. If we continue with the #TT on Twitter, organize the verbal abuse, but also go to our city's administration, supervising our local deputies, senators, etc. We get to educate the public servants who are at our disposition, it is necessary to initiate a civil educational movement within our society. Who is in charge? I am left with the impression that in a land of fools, the idiot is king, maybe the idiots are among us, and we need only look in the mirror," Dr. Luis Carlos López Ulloa, author of the original text, concludes.

Brenda.Colon@sandiegored.com

borderzonie@gmail.com