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On May 31st of 2012
Congressman Justo Orozco
known for his homophobic and misogynist remarks
was elected president of the Human Rights Commission in Congress on May 31 2012.
Citizens massively expressed their outrage throughout social media, mostly Facebook and Twitter.
A petition to have Orozco's presidency revoked was set up on change.org.
Citizens wanted Justo Orozco out from the Human Rights Commision
With the objective of creating greater impact
at BigWebNoise we set out to centralize the activity with an online platform.
Thats why in less than 24 hours we created FueraJustoOrozco.com
as an online app with a sole purpose: "if our signature was not enough, lets show our faces".
The site was simple to use and it had great visual impact.
Users would add their Facebook profile photo to a massive wall online
and then notify their support of the cause with a post on Facebook as well.
The reaction was so intense that for the first time in history, a hashtag made the headlines of the Costa Rica's most important newspaper.
In just a few minutes, hundreds had shown their faces and demanded that Congressmen Orozco resign from the Human Rights Commission.
In five hours, 2000 had done so and in five days, the number went up to 6000.
Two days later, the hashtag #fuerajustoorozco ("kick out Justo Orozco") became the number one trending topic in Costa Rica.
By then the campaign had gathered 14,000 faces
As relevant media became interested in the initiative,
the story was covered by the four top newspapers and the three most watched televised newscasts,
in addition to radio newscasts, magazines and blogs:
a total of $65800 in earned media.
The site fuerajustoorozco.com received 165 thousand unique visitors between June 1st and June 16, 2012.
As a result of the social movement, on June 21 President Laura Chinchilla met with representatives of civil rights groups
and committed herself to supporting their cause.
That same day, the country's top newspaper dedicated their editorial to highlighting the renewed importance of social activism in the country.
On August 6, the government announced their support of a draft bill seeking to establish legal recognition of same sex couples and summon its discussion in Congress.
On Monday December 10, international Human Rights Day, BigWebNoise won the 2012 Access Innovation Prize in New York City.
Its category, Access Facebook, awarded the use of new information technologies for the promotion of Human Rights.
This marked the first time an agency in the region was given a recognition by Facebook.