ZunZuneo: USAID Funded 'Cuban Twitter' To Undermine Communist Regime

barlevg (2111272) writes "In a country where the government severely limits access to the world wide web, ZunZeneo, an anonymous SMS-based social network, drew more than 40,000 Cuban users at its peak, the Associated Press reports. On it, people shared news and opinions about music and culture. But what none of its subscribers knew was that the project was secretly funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), though a series of shell corporations and foreign bank accounts, and that its stated goal was 'renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society' in the Communist stronghold, hopefully leading to a 'Cuban Spring.'"

Comments

Oh goodness me, non-military means!

[Anonymous Coward]

How terrible the US government is, using the concepts of a free exchange of ideas to overthrow another regime!

Well, ok, to be fair in the US, most of those free ideas are scams, but it's still slightly better than bombs and poisoned cigars.

USAID

[DarkOx]

USAID is suppose to be an aide organization. The moment they have to start laundering money they have gone off the reservation and entered CIA territory.

There is a place for clandestine operation to work against regimes we don't like, that is why we have a foreign intelligence agency, CIA. Our government is completely out of control and way to large this is just more proof!

Not only that it completely undermines the mission of USAID to have it associated with these type of shenanigans; its supposed to be about soft power, its supposed to be about building trust. Here we have one more department with in the government demonstrating laws don't matter, not ours and certainly not any other sovereigns. Shameful...

Re:USA's attention to Cuba seems silly

[NotDrWho]

Batista was a U.S. puppet, and his cronies (who are now a significant voting block in FL) lost a lot of money and power when Castro came in. They want it back, and they want it back BAD. The U.S. will murder, commit terrorism, or do anything else to accomplish this goal.

The most shameful incident (IMHO) came in 1976, when a CIA agent blew up a civilian Cuban airliner, killing 78 innocent people. And said CIA agent is still living free (and protected) in the U.S. to this day. The U.S., my country, openly committing terrorism for petty economic ends. Fucking pathetic.