Cellular phone cameras have become a powerful tool for journalists and citizens in reporting requests for bribes and other excessive uses of power. In Mexico, cellular phones and social networks have also become a popular form to broadcast abuses of power, attempts at electoral fraud, and demonstrations of citizens against the police. In Brazil images of police abuse against reporters and protestors have been shared throughout numerous cities in the country.

Tania Lara in The Knight Center's Journalism in the Americas Blog writes about how journalists and citizens are using cellular phone cameras and social networks to denounce various abuses by authorities.