Following an investigation by the Associated Press, the U.S. government has acknowledged creating a text-message–based social network in Cuba with the goal being to provoke unrest in the Caribbean-based country.
ZunZuneo, also known as “Cuban Twitter,” ran from 2009-12, when the program’s grant money ran out. It had 40,000 subscribers at the height of its popularity, a surprising stat for a country with limited web access.
The project was reportedly run by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a federal international development organization supported by the Department of State.
ZunZuneo, slang for Cuban hummingbird’s tweet, was designed to attract a subscriber base by discussing everyday topics such as sports and weather. U.S. officials then planned to introduce political messages into its news feed, with the goal being to spur the network’s users, especially younger Cubans, into dissent from their communist-run government.
To avoid detection, officials set up firms in Spain and the Cayman Islands to pay the company’s bills and route the text messages away from U.S. servers.
A bogus website was also set up, with fake web advertisements, to give users the impression that ZunZuneo was a real company.
On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed the program’s existence as well as the U.S. government’s involvement with it. He said that it had been debated by Congress and passed all necessary oversight controls.
“These are the kinds of environments where a program like this and its association with the U.S. government can create problems for practitioners and members of the public,” Carney explained. “So appropriate discretion is engaged in for that reason but not because it’s covert, not because it's an intelligence program, because it is neither covert nor an intelligence program.”
USAID spokesman Matt Herrick told the BBC that his agency was proud of the work it did, and that it helped Cubans all throughout the country exercise their rights while simultaneously connecting them with the outside world.
Despite Herrick’s enthusiasm over the project’s success, as the BBC points out, revelation of the USAID’s involvement could hurt the Agency’s long-held claim that it does not partake in covert actions in countries where it also operates aid programs.
The news site interviewed one former subscriber, Javiel, who said that ZunZuneo sent him sports news for free via text. He said there was no indication that the company was supported by the U.S. government, and that he never received anything related to politics.
Javiel added that a little over a year ago, the messages simply stopped coming in.
Story via: bbc.com
Advertisement
Learn more about Electronic Products Magazine
