The U.S. has done it again, embroiled in yet another mission to overthrow the Communist government of Cuba. Those of you in U.S. history class will recall that in 1963, the U.S. launched an attack on the island nation, just after Fidel Castro came to power. It failed, like this fiasco involving a social media platform and intent to incite. The story is a little confusing, so here is a very basic retelling.
Many parties, organizations, etc. have tried to use or create apps and social media networks for a variety of reasons. For elections, this has a very obvious application of trying to garner and approach voters, but there also is a somewhat more subtle function. Following the example of such movements as the Arab Spring, largely born on social media (specifically Twitter), these sites or apps are used to incite the people, or scan their activity and ideas.
In 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development furtively created a platform called ZunZuneo. Essentially, this was a free and anonymous texting service for anyone who signed up (similar to Twitter, but with no character limit). It gained in popularity very quickly, with 40,000 followers but no knowledge of how this service was being paid for and then provided. With no state funding, and censorship from the Cuban government, the site shut down after three years.
This particular operation has recently become significant. According to the Associated Press, the USAID said that this project was deliberately aimed at stirring social unrest. Their goal was to gain a massive audience using safer content, such as weather or sports, and then gradually introduce politics to ultimately engage a "smart mob", one that could revolt against the Cuban government. It is reported that the agency had amassed half a million Cuban cell phone numbers prior to launching the platform.
While President Obama has stated that this operation was not covert, there is a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord (one of the contractors for this project) which reads, "There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement. This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to ensure the success of the Mission." As the news wave rides, more officials are claiming to know nothing about this.
While I am the first to applaud free speech and the flow of information being shared via social media, this release of insight appalls me. Granted, I should not expect much else from a nation with recent security scandals, but the fact that the U.S. would go out of their way to amass cell phone numbers from a foreign nation, create a secretively biased platform in which innocent people were exposed to a prescribed system with intent to funnel in flammable information amidst their own opinions and facts, and then deny that this was done in secret on purpose is unspeakably shameful. If Tthe United States, a world power with many resources and problems of its own, could be spending its time and energy on other pertinent and life threatening problems (for example, health care, homelessness, hunger, or the Syrian conflict) and not on settling an old score with Cuba, whose form of government is mindlessly used as a synonym for pure evil, who knows what this nation could actually solve.
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