A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a social networking account.
Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic via Twitter as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools.
“… There were 26 car accidents, or people left their cars in the middle of the streets to run and pick up their children, because they thought these things were occurring at their kids’ schools,” Buganza told local reporters.
The charges say the messages caused such panic that emergency numbers “totally collapsed because people were terrified,” damaging service for real emergencies.
Read more at MSNBC.com.
