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View Full Version : US secretly created 'Cuban Twitter' to stir unrest




tsai3904
04-03-2014, 09:24 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government.

McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit unsuspecting executives who would not be told of the company's ties to the U.S. government.

McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press and multiple interviews with people involved in the project, the plan was to develop a bare-bones "Cuban Twitter," using cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba's strict control of information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet.

...

More:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest

thequietkid10
04-03-2014, 09:37 AM
More:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest

Big difference between creating an entity where people can express outrage as opposed to creating said outrage. Is it the best use of my dollars, God no. Is the US just setting something up, probably not either.

tsai3904
04-03-2014, 09:51 AM
Documents show the U.S. government planned to build a subscriber base through "non-controversial content": news messages on soccer, music, and hurricane updates. Later when the network reached a critical mass of subscribers, perhaps hundreds of thousands, operators would introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize "smart mobs" — mass gatherings called at a moment's notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."

Their intention was to create outrage.

pcosmar
04-03-2014, 10:16 AM
And they think the average Cuban has a cell phone? Most have no phone,, Cell or hardline.

Party members and the well connected maybe.. Not average Jose.

tsai3904
04-03-2014, 10:21 AM
And they think the average Cuban has a cell phone? Most have no phone,, Cell or hardline.

Party members and the well connected maybe.. Not average Jose.


Yet in the years since Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother Raul, Cuba had sought to jumpstart the long stagnant economy. Raul Castro began encouraging cellphone use, and hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly using mobile phones for the first time, though smartphones with access to the Internet remained restricted.

Cubans could text message, though at a high cost in a country where the average wage was a mere $20 a month.

Cell phones were prevalent but they couldn't connect to the internet.

surf
04-03-2014, 10:33 AM
Cell phones were prevalent but they couldn't connect to the internet.
"text messaging rates may apply..."

they'd probably get an angry mob when the phone bills show up.

somewhere Joseph Goebbels is smiling.

pcosmar
04-03-2014, 10:33 AM
Cell phones were prevalent but they couldn't connect to the internet.

a couple years ago.. it was 9 out of 100 people.. not exactly prevalent.

Henry Rogue
04-04-2014, 08:34 AM
Want to undermine Cuba's communist government? Open Free trade with them.

nbruno322
04-04-2014, 09:20 AM
What a freaking waste of money.

Nobody asked for my consent to spend the money extracted from me on this crap.

Uriah
04-04-2014, 09:21 AM
Want to undermine Cuba's communist government? Open Free trade with them.

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner!

nbruno322
04-04-2014, 09:40 AM
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" -- a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, The Associated Press has learned.

The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent.

Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes.

At minimum, details uncovered by the AP appear to muddy the U.S. Agency for International Development's longstanding claims that it does not conduct covert actions, and could undermine the agency's mission to deliver aid to the world's poor and vulnerable -- an effort that requires the trust and co-operation of foreign governments.

USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington's ties to the project, according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP. They set up front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail, and recruited CEOs without telling them they would be working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded project.

ZunZuneo's organizers wanted the social network to grow slowly to avoid detection by the Cuban government. Eventually, documents and interviews reveal, they hoped the network would reach critical mass so that dissidents could organize "smart mobs" -- mass gatherings called at a moment's notice -- that could trigger political demonstrations, or "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."

The estimated $1.6 million spent on ZunZuneo was publicly earmarked for an unspecified project in Pakistan, public government data show, but those documents don't reveal where the funds were actually spent.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-to-stir-unrest-ap-1.1758680