Anonymity in Mexico is the only form of defence in the increasingly violent conflict involving the country's drug cartels, government, media and public. It provides defence from reprisals, but also hands impunity to those acting with no identity, creating a vicious cycle of ambiguous, unreliable information and fear. And it is pursued by many of the actors in the drug war, mostly via the use of digital social networks – the newest front for the conflict.

The ability to distribute information that is unvetted, unverified and often from unnamed sources across a plethora of platforms is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because information is harder to suppress and control, but a curse because of the opportunity it creates for propaganda and misinformation that is then reported by the media and acted upon by the public as fact.

A YouTube video threat this week from members of the international hacker movement Anonymous against the notoriously violent Mexican drug gang Los Zetas is a case in point. The threat follows the alleged kidnapping of one of Anonymous's members in the state of Veracruz. In the message, delivered by a man in the Guy Fawkes mask made famous by the V for Vendetta movie, Anonymous claims to have the names of Zeta gang members, as well as journalists and corrupt officials who work with them, and promises to publish the information on Friday, should their kidnapped member not be returned.

"We all know who they are and where they are. You made a mistake in taking one of us, release him and if something happens to him, you sons of a bitches will remember the 5th of November," says the video clip.

This is happening against the background of Mexico president Felipe Calderón's four-year assault against the drug cartels and organised crime networks. More than 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence and scores of journalists have been killed or disappeared during the security campaign. Misinformation can cost lives.

Anonymous included no information on the person allegedly kidnapped in Veracruz, a state that has seen a spike in drug-related killings over the last couple of months. Over the weekend, reports circulated that Anonymous had cancelled its planned reprisals against the gang due to the risk involved. Then, confusingly, the operation was back on, according to their various Twitter sources. An interview with some of the members of Anonymous in the national newspaper Milenio appears to have been conducted virtually, with two unnamed members of the group.

The identities of operatives working for Mexico's drug cartels and organised crime networks are equally opaque. A new group, called the Mata Zetas, recently announced its purpose – to kill members of the Zetas gang – via masked men in a video on YouTube. The local government has connected them to Chapo Guzman's Sinaloa cartel.

On a recent reporting trip to Veracruz, where two journalists have been killed in recent months, local journalists told me they don't know who to trust, who was responsible for the deaths of their fellow reporters or why they were killed. As a result, fewer reporters around Mexico are covering killings for fear of reprisals from unidentified threats, and the public relies on information on social networks. But much of the information on Twitter and Facebook is unvetted, unconfirmed and anonymous. Journalists and public alike watch websites such as Blog Del Narco and the plethora of other digital outlets that publish morbid photos and reports of drug violence. But the identity of those who run such outlets is unknown.

Anonymity is also pursued by the official agents involved. State investigators, forensic scientists at crime scenes, marines, soldiers and police patrolling the streets of cities with high levels of drug violence all tend to do so wearing masks so as not to reveal their identities. So it's fitting that the threat to the Zetas cartel should come from an anonymous group, because being unknown is the only form of protection – for everyone: for hackers, for cartel bosses and hitmen, for social networkers, journalists without bylines, police, soldiers, marines and investigators.

If you're not accountable, what's to stop you from abusing your power, or creating completely false information because it makes a good story or helps your interests? This column could well be about a very successful cyber hoax, but due to its anonymous nature, we'll probably never know – unless it comes true on its promise to reveal Zeta operatives and informers on Friday. Watch this space.