Castro’s dictatorship blamed Twitter for massive protests and denounced “communications war” against Cuba

A campaign orchestrated in Twitter from the United States to destabilize the regime. This is the great argument of the Cuban dictatorship to explain the historical demonstrations that have taken place on the island since July 11.

“I have irrefutable proof that the majority of users who took part in this campaign were in United States and that they used automated systems for the viralization of the content, without being penalized by the social network Twitter“, declared the Minister of External Relations of the Castro regime on Tuesday, Bruno Rodriguez.

For the minister, these demonstrations, during which thousands of Cubans demonstrated, shouting “freedom”, “we are hungry” and “down with dictatorship”, It was not a “social epidemic”, but the result of a “communication and information war against Cuba”.

And the main culprit? The hashtag #SOSCuba, launched in early July to alert on the serious health situation on the island, in the face of an increase in coronavirus cases, and to demand humanitarian aid from abroad.

Doug Madory, director of internet analytics at tech company Kentik, was more skeptical of the official theory: “Does anyone send a tweet to the United States that throws people onto the streets in Cuba?” (…) It’s hard to believe “. “I don’t know if we could sit down and try to create a Twitter campaign that has such an influence on the average Cuban that out of nowhere convince yourself to do things you wouldn’t have done otherwise“He added.

Although he recognizes the existence of automated tweets in the countryside, the expert says that “this is likely to be done by the Cuban regime too, Some of whom are surprisingly identical in their tweets.

Madory recalled that in the face of this the authorities have a formidable weapon: turn off the tap. In fact, from Sunday noon to Wednesday morning, mobile internet was inaccessible. He just started coming back on Wednesday unsteadily and no access to social networks, but on Thursday they were fully restored.

Although the dictatorship has not confirmed having restricted the Internet and has confined itself to emphasizing its “right to defend itself”, a state television host broke the news on Tuesday night: “I understand as a journalist, even if it hurts me, the extent of the cut of social networks because this is the area where the war against Cuba is being organized.”

For Cuban political scientist Harold Cárdenas, “it would be an oversimplification to say that this is a US campaign, because there are obviously many other reasons behind the protests.”

Cárdenas also maintains that the authorities “They attribute an exaggerated importance to what happened on Twitter”, since these demonstrations were mainly motivated by “fatigue, economic exhaustion”.

As part of the events, the song “Patria y vida” has become the hymn of the resistance against the Cuban dictatorship, both for those who inhabit the island and for the millions who have fled it. And these three words are now loaded with a symbolic value that scares power.

This Thursday, the regime promised to imprison those who cry “homeland and life”. A Cuban military officer warned on a television program of the regime’s official regime that those who utter these words will be charged with the crime of “instigation”: “The instigators can be, as we saw in one case, motorcyclists saying above ‘homeland and life’, repeat ‘homeland and life’: it is instigator, instigator of disorder.”

(With information from AFP)

Read on: