Although I rarely use my Twitter account, I have read some very interesting stories about Twitter and its massive influence on current events. Just a few months ago, when the presidential campaign in Mexico was at a peak, the strongest candidate’s daughter exchanged some tweets with her boyfriend in which they belittled the Mexican people for having fun at her father’s expense after what had happened to him at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. Here’s what she wrote: “Greetings to all those imbeciles, to all those poor little people, who only criticize those who they envy”.

It definitely didn’t help the candidate’s image, already badly hurt after his Guadalajara Book Fair experience. What happened in Guadalajara was this:  when the press had asked him what his favourite books were, he went totally blank and couldn’t remember any book or author (not even one). After a few minutes of shamefully stuttering and getting tangled up in his answer, he remembered one book: the Bible, and tried very hard to make it look as if he had read it. And note: this happened at a Book Fair!

In a desperate attempt to fix what the candidate’s daughter had done, her Tweeter account was immediately closed, only to be reactivated later that day, when “the girl” posted an apology. It was obvious that it was the candidate’s entourage who wrote that apology because that was the first time the daughter posted anything with good grammar and spelling. Now that her father is Mexico’s president, she’s probably learning to keep her thoughts to herself.

I remember a different case where Twitter was a big component in a scandal: last year, a Peruvian author called Bryce Echenique was awarded with a very important literary prize in Mexico (by the way, this also happened in that memorable Guadalajara Book Fair). Since he has been accused of plagiarism many times in the last few years, there was an uproar in Spanish literary circles, and many people used Twitter to accuse the jurors of favouring Bryce Echenique as payoff for previous “gifts” (authors helping each other in exchange for publishing deals, etc.).

Twitter can definitely be an interesting place.