What if Your President Talked as Much as Trump But You Had No Voice? Ecuadorians Turn to #MashiMachine for Freedom of Speech

Curious if any political figure is as verbose or polarizing as Donald Trump? Enter Ecuadoran President Rafael “Mashi” Correa.

While CBS once called out Mr. Correa as one of the world’s ‘sexiest leaders’, it is more common for those who follow Latin American and global affairs to associate Mr. Correa with his history of nightly television tirades and his impossible to ignore Tweets. In human rights circles, he is as well-known for his backward policies and routine efforts to squelch freedom of expression. Since assuming the presidency, Mr. Correa’s free-speech killing ways have disallowed the people of Ecuador to earn the share of voice they deserve.

Alas, the people have the means to beat Mr. Correa at his own game. MashiMachine. a video-based application that lets people create and share videos with words from the footage and audio that the Ecuadorian president has said in his official statements, is that vehicle. Since its launch, MashiMedia has proven extremely popular with the people. With Mr. Correa? Not so much. In fact, in the short period since its launch, MashiMachine has generated nearly 130,000 videos and attracted the rather typical ‘cease and desist.’ Note, they are baseless and we have absolutely no plans to take MashiMachine down.

In the U.S. and other countries in which free speech is a given, political figures like Trump, Caitlyn Jenner and Selena Gomez garner millions of followers on Twitter and carry extraordinary media weight and share of voice. In Ecuador, a video app generating 130,000 videos during its early launch is unheard of and remarkable. We are very proud of the numbers and our people. Freedom of expression should have no borders.

The concept that compelled MashiMachine was simple.

In Ecuador, Mr. Correa has absolute control over media. He achieved this by confiscating a media group that represented 45 percent of the national media and becoming the defacto voice the people of Ecuador are allowed to hear. Once the government had control over the largest media group of Ecuador, they adopted a restrictive law called “Communication Law,” which monitors and restricts opinions of journalists who oppose Correa’s government. The ‘law’ forced three established journalists out of their jobs. Those journalists got together to open a free speech online journal on January 2016, named “4 pelagatos” (the same word Correa used to insult them). I know the story intimately because I am one of them.

MashiMachine was born from 4 Pelagatos and is part of our mission to ensure the people of Ecuador have vehicles to share their voice. In today’s world, game-like video apps are often the best enabler for providing individuals with the same quick and easy tools the most powerful leaders, celebrities and brands use to drive awareness and provoke followings. MashiMachine is website application that lets people create and share videos with words from the footage and audio that the Ecuadorian president has said in his official statements.

As its popularity has risen, the app has given Ecuadorians an opportunity to reclaim and redefine their freedom of press and speech through. When using the app, users program the ‘President’ to say things the people of Ecuador need and want him to say, not just the ones the government chooses for them. The platform allows the making of standalone and new videos easy and fast, and the new content produced by users is virally and socially shareable.

Historically, President Correa uploaded as much as four hours of video and audio of weekly updates to YouTube. This provided ample fuel for MashiMachine. The website also has a prompt where people can write whatever they want and click a button. The president then says whatever they want him to say. The app returns a stitched-up shareable video and a website link that can be distributed easily and freely over Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp social networks. These videos may range from funny quotes to highly charged political statements. The choice of content is up to the people using the app.

MashiMachine lives on mashimachine.4pelagatos.com website, with an interactive desktop/mobile deployment that allows the platform to be experienced anywhere. The hashtag #mashimachine in used in every shared post to viralize and track user interactions.

To say MashiMachine is popular is an understatement. In its first 72 hours:

- Users co-created more than 130K videos, which were viewed over 700K times

- The site was visited over 900K times

- The #mashimachine hashtag was Ecuador’s first Twitter trending topic for more than18 hours, before the government flooded Twitter with their own hashtags, yet the momentum kept for another 20 hours

- Videos created with the platform had a full spectrum of political views and opinions, funny jokes, insightful reflections, football commentaries and the list keeps growing. The MashiMachine spoke about everything the people of Ecuador wanted their President to speak about

• There are now over 130K videos and third party media stories and requests are strong. It’s a story the free world connects to for many reasons

About the Author

Martín Pallares is a former Knight fellow at Stanford and a founding member of the alternative news site “4Pelagatos.” contributions have also appeared in the New York Times and many other international publications.

#mashimachine #donaldtrump #HRW #freedomofspeech #freedomofexpression #LatinAmerica #TheAmericas #humanrights #politics #ecuador