Internet censorship in Cuba

Background

Surveillance and self-censorship

Access to the internet in Cuba is controlled by the Empresa de Telecommunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA), a state-owned monopoly. Access to the internet is granted through temporary or permanent accounts which last 30 days and 360 days, respectively. Temporary accounts are mostly used by foreign tourists, while permanent accounts are mostly used by Cuban citizens. Although an estimated 32.5% of the population had access to the internet as of 2017, the vast majority of those people only have access to the intranet that is offered by the government. The intranet includes access to an email service that can be used within the country, educational and cultural materials that are provided largely by government institutions, state-sponsored media links, and some foreign websites that demonstrate support for the Cuban government. The most popular sites that are offered through the intranet service include EcuRed, a Wikipedia-like service that is offered in Spanish that attempts to "create and disseminate knowledge from a decolonizing point of view". The percentage of the population that has access to the global internet is far smaller at only 5% of the population in 2014.

Cuba does not have the infrastructure and individuals have insufficient incomes to make home Wi-Fi broadly available, thus most Cubans access Wi-Fi through public means including the "ParkNets" and the Joven Club. The ParkNets are public Wi-Fi hotspots often located in parks where the vast majority of Cubans go for Wi-Fi access. There are 421 public Wi-Fi hotspots in all of Cuba, and 68 of those hotspots are located in the capital city of Havana. Most Wi-Fi is accessed by Cubans is in these public areas, as a result Cubans overwhelmingly access the internet through mobile devices, with among the most popular apps in Cuba being communication apps Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp which are often used to contact family that is living abroad. The other method through which Cubans access the internet is the Joven Clubs, or Youth Club, which are government-provided computer centers where the public can access both the intranet and internet by providing identification. By using identification codes for every person that accesses the internet, the government is likely able to track the online behavior of everyone that is using the internet which may result in some degree of self-censorship in the population.

Cost of Internet access

Until 2018, Two kinds of online connections are offered in Cuban Internet cafes: a 'national' one that is restricted to a simple intranet service operated by the government, and an 'international' one that gives access to the entire Internet. The general population can access the former for .10 CUC an hour, while the later costs 1.50 CUC an hour. Most people in Cuba are paid a salary of $25 per month by the Cuban government, and even people who are employed by foreign firms still only make a salary of $30 per month. With such low incomes and the relatively expensive cost of internet, most Cubans who access the internet are motivated to use the lower cost Cuban intranet rather than the global internet. This means that of the Cubans who are able to access the internet, most of them are accessing the content that is either created directly by the government or curated by the government and far more highly censored than the global internet. The cost of internet access restricts access to the internet and limits access to the global internet even if the local intranet is accessible.

Until 2018, Residential internet is also very expensive at 15 CUC per month for the cheapest plan and 70 CUC per month for the plan that offers the fastest quality internet. These services represent a cost that is excess of the majority or all of the salary of the vast majority of the Cuban population. Similarly, internet for businesses is out of reach for all but the most wealthy customers with monthly costs that are at least 100 CUC a month for direct access to the global internet for the slowest service and at a maximum of over 30,000 CUC a month for the fastest service that is offered. As a result, the vast majority of Cuban residences and businesses do not have access to the internet.

Since 2018, the prices of access to the Internet began to decrease. For 2021, one hour to access Internet through public Wi Fi cost 1.50 CUP. Access to the national network, 0.50 CUP. The minimum data mobile package down to 110 CUP by 600 Mbs and a bonus for 4G lines, combining also messages and calls. Since 2018, access to the Internet by mobile data is available. In 2019, 7.1 millions of Cubans could access the Internet. The prices of connections, since*[clarification needed*] WiFi zones, or mobile data, or from houses through the "Nauta Hogar" service have been decreasing, specially since the economic reform of January 2021, when all the salaries increased by at least 5 times, and the prices of the Internet remain in the same point. In 2021, 7.7 millions of Cuban people accessing the Internet were reported.

El Paquete

In an attempt to deliver media to the Cuban public without unreliable digital means, some Cubans have gone as far as hand delivering content to the user through the use of portable hard drives. This allows individuals to avoid having to use internet circumvention tools altogether and presents a more straight forward approach to gathering content for those who are not as technically adept or do not have the resources to gather content from the internet. El Paquete Semanal, or the weekly package in English, is the local name for the digital content that is delivered to Cuba on a weekly basis. The content that is delivered through El Paquete consists of a variety of digital media, including music, television shows, movies, news articles, foreign software, and mobile applications. This media is delivered to a computer owned by a local vendor in Cuba and then sold to Cuban citizens who come and download the content that they would wish to consume from a computer onto a USB to use in their own homes. The content of El Paquete is often entertainment and information driven rather than an attempt to smuggle in content that is explicitly negative towards the Cuban government. El Paquete forms a sort of crude offline internet where the Cuban population can gain access to a tremendous amount of digital content despite the lack of information technology infrastructure within the country.

However, since the availability of mobile data (2018) and better prices, most of Cuban access Internet and his contents more easily, so, "El paquete" has lost relevance.

StreetNets (SNet)

StreetNets is a name used to refer to the local mesh networks that are built by Cuban citizens in order to connect localities to a private network that is outside of the view of the government and can operate in a way that is completely uncensored. Members of the mesh networks are able to communicate online privately with one another and share files through the network without fear of government oversight or censorship. The mesh network is formed by a series of Wi-Fi antennas and Ethernet cables that are connected to one another and are able to bring hundreds of computers onto a single network. It is estimated that over 9,000 computers in the capital city of Havana are connected to some form of a mesh network. As mentioned above, all internet is controlled by the ETECSA, so ownership of Wi-Fi equipment privately without the consent of the government is illegal without a license from the Ministry of Communications. However, the government has not taken much action to attempt to shut down the SNet, likely because there is strong self-censorship by the community to the extent that if anyone posts pornographic material or discusses politics, they are permanently blocked from using the network. Both the SNet and El Paquette are largely self censored because of the value that Cubans place on accessing the content and their unwillingness to face backlash by the government, potentially risking losing access to the content.

In 2019, after talks between the supporters of SNet and the officials of the communications ministry, the SNet was joint to the national network of the Young Computer Club, a Cuban state company that offers courses and access to Internet to all the Cuban population.

References

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