According to its manager, "Ecuatorianos en el ring" - which has Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts - has been known for being an apolitical page that shows videos complaining about various topics.
This statement was originally published on fundamedios.org on 2 April 2015.
On 31 March 2015, one of the managers of the satirical Facebook page “Ecuatorianos en el ring“, reported being the victim of threats against his personal safety. Through two fictitious Twitter accounts he was warned that they know who he is and where he and his family are and that he has 24 hours to cancel his account and delete the videos he has posted.
Speaking to Fundamedios, the manager, who asked not to be named, said he was contacted through a direct Twitter message from an account that he followed after being deceived with a promise that he would receive information. After this he got the following warning messages: “Security is what you need, you have 24 hours to delete this account and your YouTube channel. Greetings from the computer intelligence service”.
“Your security systems have failed you, we know who you and your family are”, “If you don’t want to receive a bouquet of flowers as Crudo did (…) delete this account and all its videos”. After these messages he received more threats telling him that the time to delete his accounts was running out.
According to its manager, “Ecuatorianos en el ring” – which has Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts – has been known for being an apolitical page that shows videos complaining about various topics, but has mostly focused on reporting irregularities committed by the the Ecuadorian Football Federation and its president, Luis Chiriboga. He said that he uploaded the most recent video in January 2015, which reported that the Chiriboga had allegedly misused money that belonged to the Federation to take a companion on a trip, and that this could be the trigger for the threats. He said that after that video he had not posted much more. The page administrator was surprised by the threatening messages and by the fact he was identified by his full name outside of Ecuador.
This is the third set of threats against social network managers. The first occurred on 19 February with the page Crudo Ecuador. Its manager received a threatening letter with a bouquet of flowers, after which he decided to stop posting. The second case occurred on 22 February when the manager of the Facebook page “Ecuatoriano hasta las huevas” was threatened by another user, who warned him that he would receive flowers and “would be the next” if he did not refrain from publishing government-related articles.
