Social Media Versus the Government

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Six months ago this week, 43 students from Ayotzinapa teachers training college in Mexico went missing while on their way to a protest - feared murdered by the cartels with government complicity. Angry Mexicans took to the streets but also went online, with millions of tweets targeting the government. It has prompted what many say is the country's biggest political crisis in two decades. BBC Trending has assembled a panel of some of Mexican social media's most influential voices, for a special extended edition. In front of an audience in Mexico City, we ask whether the millions of Mexicans using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to protest levels of violence and stand up for freedom of speech, add up to a 'Mexican Spring'? On the stage with Mukul Devichand will be Chumel Torres, the YouTube star many call 'Mexico's Jon Stewart,' leading investigative journalist Lydiah Cachos and political commentator Frederico Arreola. The programme will also feature reporting from Guerrero state, from the spot the students clashed with police. We explore the Facebook networks of ordinary Mexicans who say hundreds of their missing relatives are buried in mass graves in the same hills the authorities have been searching for the bodies of the 43. (Photo:Mexico students' crime protest. Credit: Alfredo Estrella / Getty Images)