In 2009, the US government launched its own version of Twitter in Cuba, called ZunZuneo, slang for a hummingbird’s tweet. The project was executed through USAID, which channelled funds for the project through the Cayman Islands and Spain such that the paper trail would not lead back to the US. The details are murky concerning whether or not the project was actually legal under United States law, “which requires written authorization of covert action by the president and congressional notification. Officials at USAID would not say who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it.” (source)
The project was born in 2009 when affiliates of the U.S. Agency for International Development covertly gained half a million Cuban cell-phone numbers purportedly through a contact at Cuba’s state-run service provider. USAID began to build a subscriber base through these phone numbers, introducing non-controversial topics to the network such as sports, music, and weather. The plan was to gain a large subscriber base, up to several hundred thousand users, and to introduce political trending topics to the network once ZunZuneo reached critical mass. The subscriber base never reached the height that its designers had hoped it would– there were just 40,000 subscribers at its height.
The ultimate objective of the project was to give Cubans access to a functional social network not controlled by the authoritarian Cuban government, and to provide a mechanism for people to organize political demonstrations at a moment’s notice, and to "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society." In addition to providing this network for social and political action, USAID stored and analyzed information about subscribers such as age, gender, political tendencies, and receptiveness.
There are several reasons for creating such a network rather than allowing Cubans to simply use Twitter as millions of other people across the world do. First, internet penetration in Cuba was just 15% as of 2012, and the government saw the internet as a dangerous thing that needed to be closely controlled. Also, those people who did have access to Twitter had to pay for it. Twitter in and of itself is a free service, there is no charge to anyone just for using the service. There are other costs incurred by Cubans trying to post tweets, however, because the sparse internet access requires Cubans to use other means of posting to Twitter. The way that many people would post tweets, until recently, was to send an SMS message to a number outside of Cuba, which would then be posted to their Twitter account. The messaging rates associated with these messages were significant– “[every] text message sent costs 1 CUC, something impractical for a country in which the median salary is 17 CUC per month.” (source)
The project ended up being a failure; the network disappeared in 2012 when the grant money ran out, and the subscriber base never reached the numbers that USAID had initially anticipated. This attempt by USAID, whether or not officially authorized by the federal government, is an interesting example of using–or attempting to use–social networks for political transitions. Countries across the Middle East have seen revolutions and transitions toward democracy when people utilize services such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to organize and execute protests and demonstrations to effect change. Although the Middle East is often in the media spotlight as the region most in need of transition to democracy, it is far from being the only region in the world facing similar issues and using similar mechanisms to achieve its goals.
The project was born in 2009 when affiliates of the U.S. Agency for International Development covertly gained half a million Cuban cell-phone numbers purportedly through a contact at Cuba’s state-run service provider. USAID began to build a subscriber base through these phone numbers, introducing non-controversial topics to the network such as sports, music, and weather. The plan was to gain a large subscriber base, up to several hundred thousand users, and to introduce political trending topics to the network once ZunZuneo reached critical mass. The subscriber base never reached the height that its designers had hoped it would– there were just 40,000 subscribers at its height.
The ultimate objective of the project was to give Cubans access to a functional social network not controlled by the authoritarian Cuban government, and to provide a mechanism for people to organize political demonstrations at a moment’s notice, and to "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society." In addition to providing this network for social and political action, USAID stored and analyzed information about subscribers such as age, gender, political tendencies, and receptiveness.
There are several reasons for creating such a network rather than allowing Cubans to simply use Twitter as millions of other people across the world do. First, internet penetration in Cuba was just 15% as of 2012, and the government saw the internet as a dangerous thing that needed to be closely controlled. Also, those people who did have access to Twitter had to pay for it. Twitter in and of itself is a free service, there is no charge to anyone just for using the service. There are other costs incurred by Cubans trying to post tweets, however, because the sparse internet access requires Cubans to use other means of posting to Twitter. The way that many people would post tweets, until recently, was to send an SMS message to a number outside of Cuba, which would then be posted to their Twitter account. The messaging rates associated with these messages were significant– “[every] text message sent costs 1 CUC, something impractical for a country in which the median salary is 17 CUC per month.” (source)
The project ended up being a failure; the network disappeared in 2012 when the grant money ran out, and the subscriber base never reached the numbers that USAID had initially anticipated. This attempt by USAID, whether or not officially authorized by the federal government, is an interesting example of using–or attempting to use–social networks for political transitions. Countries across the Middle East have seen revolutions and transitions toward democracy when people utilize services such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to organize and execute protests and demonstrations to effect change. Although the Middle East is often in the media spotlight as the region most in need of transition to democracy, it is far from being the only region in the world facing similar issues and using similar mechanisms to achieve its goals.
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