Castro’s answer to social networks? A Cuban Facebook clone
Red Social was allegedly been set up by Cuba’s Ministry of Education. It’s impossible to access from outside the island. (Screenshot by La Chiringa de Cuba)
By SANDRO MAIRATA
Channel: Latin American Affairs
Launched under the radar a few days ago, “Red Social” (literally, “Social Network”), is the Castro regime’s latest attempt to squeeze the information flow in Cuba.
The site mimics the look and feel of Facebook, replacing the site’s famous depiction of all continents linked by its service with an illustration of the island, with Cubans only connecting with fellow Cubans. “A virtual meeting point for Cuban universities,” the homepage slogan reads.
“It appears to be a Ministry of Education-sponsored idea,” writes Carlos Alberto Pérez Benítez, on the blog La Chiringa de Cuba. Pérez Benítez points out the network is available Intranet-only within the island. In fact, Red Social uses a Facebook-clone address, http://facebook.ismm.edu.cu/, which is impossible to access from the United States.
Internet users in Cuba have to deal everyday with the tight official controls; the initiative to come up with a Cuban social network appears exactly a year after the government launched its own “Cuban Wikipedia,” called EcuRed, a “Cuban Encyclopedia” aimed at telling its own version of things. Users are supposedly free to post content, but it’s known for the political tone of each entry.
Famed author Yoani Sánchez, recently named as Foreign Policy magazine’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers,” publishes her blog, Generación Y, using a network of friends who post her writings because she has been denied access to her own blog by the Cuban government.
“If this will work or not, it remains to be seen,” Pérez Benítez writes. “In any case, I invite you to create your own personal account in this new space that will surely make a difference among the few and poor options we currently have in our national network.”
