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Fidel Castro, Internet News Junkie
pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."
Wait until he gets his hands on WoW....
In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest,
Swastikas.
norms of good behavior,
Porn.
the integrity of the people
Terrorism Act 2006.
or national security."
Assange.
Being rich in America is like being rich in Cuba: life's cool. Meanwhile, being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks. In the latter case, what differs is the handout you get and who you can get away criticising sufficiently loudly.
just a slight question. Have you actually been to Cuba, if so, did you go out of the tourist areas and talk to the locals? From your comment, I suspect that you did not. Yes, the country is quite closed and controlled, but it is no where near as bad for the people as outsiders like to make out. There are a great many have nots in the UK where the divide between what you have and what they don't is a great deal greater than it is in cuba. Not saying that everything they do is right, I am just commenting that not everything they do is wrong. Just as a small matter of historical interest, perhaps you could read up on the history of their revolution and how 10 American Billionaires managed 99.8% of the total GDP of cuba, and how the locals starved pre the revolution to line the bank rolls of those 10 Americans. Do you still want to drink Bacardi now?
while most people in his country aren't allowed to do so because it would threaten his power
Actually, the "official" reason is that the US limits who can we get bandwidth from (by owning or threatening those who own the fiber around the island), so we can only get it at ridiculously high prices. I think the total bandwidth for the whole country is about 230Mb/sec download, 100 upload.
I don't believe that is the only reason (clearly, censorship is a big one - I had to censor many things in the name of "lack of bandwithd" even after I proved that it would have a negligible effect). But the "official" reason, by itself, is enough to restrict nearly as much as Cuba does. It's also disgustingly hypocritical that the US gives the Cuban government such a perfect justification for their censorship.
Who knows, maybe with the cable to Venezuela the Cuban government will show the world (and the Cubans) that the US was the only responsible for the lack of internet access in Cuba. I would be very surprised if they did - but I doubt they'll be intelligent enough to see how it would benefit them.
Cuba has many problems but malnutrition doesn't seem to be one of them. According the CIAs own statistics (in their world factbook) Cubans have a similar life expectancy to Americans; this couldn't possibly be true in a nation with system-wide poor nutrition.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I am not entirely convinced by this explanation, although maybe someone who knows more about the costs and speed of these types of connections can say whether it makes sense. Ideally, any connection that is available should be accessible to anyone at, for example, libraries. I'm not sure whether this is possible in Cuba right now (anyone that can describe the current situation in Cuba?).
The article also mentions that Cuba is building a submarine connection through Venezuela, which is aimed at solving the "internet shortage".
Do a little research on the US CIA backed military overthrow of democratically elected Allende in Chile (1973). Not only did the US "paint a bad picture" but they instigated (CIA) the overthrow of the government and installed a military dictatorship. This was not the first of the last time this happened but it is a good representative example.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Correct.
Cuba is cut-off from the Internet thanks to the US embargo. They cannot lay down fiber from Florida to Cuba. Currently only Satellite internet is available on the island. Internet is unavailable thanks to the bandwidth limits (hence unaffordable), not because "Cuba is evil". Cell phones were also banned in the past because there were not enough cell towers to provide coverage. Now, more cell towers built, cell prone available.
Anyway, high speed undersea fiber connection from Venezuela is in the works. Yeah, that's another "pinky regime". Funny how it takes socialists/communists to spread information while US can only transmit their propaganda via Radio Free America. Personally, I would have hoped that US would drop the embargo and allow companies to provide fiber internet access from Florida to Cuba. At least then Cuba would no longer be able to hide behind "it's US's fault via embargo" tag line.
Maybe US is still butt-hurt about Bay of Pigs fiasco and some rich dudes losing their playground with Batista. All the embargo is doing is strengthening Cuban resolve against US. But then what do I know.
Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics.
The Cuban government has the means to make the CIA website say what they want? Wooooooow...
You can't take the sky from me...