Gone are the times when Cuba’s rulers and state-controlled media felt they could remain safely silent about anti-government activity by dissidents, or only choose to mention it when it suited the discourse of the day.
Cuba’s ruling Revolution – the one-party communist system that emerged after Fidel Castro’s nationalist uprising in 1959 – is facing a ‘digital revolution’ and feeling the heat.
With more and more Cubans now connected to the internet – nearly 70 per cent of the population, according to recent state media estimates – news in and about Cuba is more ‘real time’ than it has been for decades, whether the subject is a deadly bus or plane crash, perennial food and medicine shortages, the impact of the Covid pandemic or reports of anti-government protests.
For the ruling communist party, this is an uncomfortable novelty, and one that directly threatens its monopoly over information, and therefore its political control over Cuban society.
