Crucitas Mining Controversy Sparks War on Facebook
Social media is decidedly a front on the battle over the Las Crucitas Mining Project, and while the fate of the project is still mired in legal battles the mining company has lost the Internet public relations battle.
The Facebook page, The Truth About Crucitas has 531 followers while the group Costa Rica Against The Crucitas Project has 18,611 members. There are other pages against the mining project as well as hundreds of youtube videos that are critical of the project. Clearly it’s an example of where a private marketing campaign has just been crushed by popular grass roots efforts of the community.
While there is plenty of traditional opposition to the project such as protests and stopping traffic the social network is playing a role to help organize the coordinate communication among groups opposed to the project. In fact some of the youtube videos show us “feeder” protests designed to raise awareness and recruit supports for larger upcoming protest.
Last week, however the Facebook conflict became especially heated when those opposed to the project accused the supporters of making threats and using aggressive propaganda. While it is difficult to verify any of the Allegations they are in fact being made, and the group enjoys a tremendous following on Facebook and among many Spanish speaking blogs in Costa Rica.
It’s also clear that the company behind the mining project, Vanessa Ventures is paying a great deal of money to promote the project as an environmentally sensitive operation that will bring money into the country and jobs to the region. At this point it is doubtful that their campaign brings any real value to their business and the social network has done more harm than help.
The entire situation becomes very notable when you consider that the social networking battlefield didn’t exist as recently as six years ago. Clearly we are at the start of this media transformation, and can expect more change even in a relatively small country like Costa Rica.
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Filed Under: Local News
they should worry about the sewer system instead… most ot the crap goes to the lakes and river..the ticos should install proper ceptic tanks before lakes and rivers turn brown full of crap…every time a tico flushes a toilet is doing the contaminating…
I agree the La Crucitas mine is easy to protest. It's a large project financed by a foreign interest and the financial losses will be in an isolated geographic region. I don't see protests against the increased dependence on foreign oil, automobile pollution, lack of a recycling program or the fact that Costa Ricans generate more trash per capita than any other Central American country.