Zunzuneo: the American social network to overthrow the Cuban government

Times have changed. Wars and Imperialism are no longer a matter of tanks, guns and mined borders. New media and social networks have emerged and become the new banners of a revolutionized new world. Such media hasn’t just served to give a voice to the oppressed in movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and the 15M in Spain. They have also become a key weapon in foreign policy for Western governments.

Pro-western propaganda is not only now spread through traditional media, but is also spread through social networks that help to rapidly circulate messages, whether true or not. As explained by the scholar Howard Rheingold, social networks have the power to create "smart mobs" able to self-organize and generate massive protest movements, and western governments have now implemented this technology as a means of influencing other societies. It is therefore no surprise that many accuse the U.S. of trying to overthrow hostile governments, or at least trying to influence political situations in countries like Egypt, Venezuela and Ukraine through social networks.

A few days ago, Associated Press revealed the tactics used by the U.S. government to influence hostile countries in this new interconnected world that we live in. ZunZuneo was a social network conceived, created and financed in secret by the U.S. in 2009 with the aim of modifying the political situation in Cuba. With the guise of being the Cuban alternative to Twitter, the real purpose was to destabilize the government through the publication of political messages targeted towards the younger citizens of Cuba.

ZunZuneo was forced to use SMS technology because of Cuba’s strict control over informative content (especially on the Internet). To do this, the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) unlawfully created a database of more than half a million Cuban phone numbers. At the beginning, to avoid suspicion, the network was filled with banal posts on topics such as sport, entertainment and weather forecasts. They used this content to generate a good base of users who relied on the network before sending ideologically loaded political messages with the aim of promoting the Cuban Spring, which consequently would make the government fall.

The Cuban government is aware that in order to maintain its hegemony and prevent riots, it must provide progress for its citizens. They promised to continue their programs of implementing Internet and landlines in Cuban homes, despite of the American initiative to destabilize Cuban government through ZunZuneo, and other technologies like Piramideo, Martí Noticias, Diario de Cuba and Cubasincensura. Despite the well-meant words of Cuban government, Internet on the island is restricted, although it is true that 500 public navigation facilities have been installed in Cuba.

At its peak ZunZuneo reached more than 40,000 users throughout Cuba. For them, this network became a sort of window to the world. It was really useful for them to receive free information daily on their mobile phones, in a country where access to the Internet is very limited and where the citizens were not allowed to have mobile phones until 2008. The citizens of Cuba, not knowing that the U.S. was behind this new social network, shared not only their opinions but also their private data. As a result, the U.S. government collected demographic information without consent. They then analyzed the collected data to uncover tastes, ideas and preferences that could be used to push young people to dissent.

Collecting such data without consent was not only illegal, but also created a potential risk to the Cuban users of this service. Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist from Princeton University who researches the social impact of technology, criticizes ZunZuneo because nobody foresaw that it could lead to the government taking reprisals against those that promote or share dissent actions across the network.

Since Associated Press made this information public, Washington has been quick to deny that this project was an undercover operation. However, following the revelations of AP, it is obvious that the USAID did everything possible to hide U.S. involvement in the project. Shell corporations were established in third countries such as Spain and Ireland, and all banking operations were conducted through accounts in the Cayman Islands.

U.S. involvement in this project is clear, as The State Department has now issued a statement defending the operation, arguing that it was not disguised and that its objectives were “to promote democracy in Cuba, guaranteeing freedom of information and strengthening civil society”. In my opinion, a social network based on forcing the audience to receive unsolicited messages is not exactly like building a free communication platform to promote democracy and exchange of information. Nevertheless, the tight control that the U.S. government has on the communications of its own citizens and the recurrent espionage scandals of world’s political leaders make these explanations sound hypocritical.

This big-hearted idea of promoting unfettered information through citizen communication platforms could hide much darker intentions behind. AP provides an internal document of the U.S. Armed Forces from which they explain that the first phase of an unconventional war is the “psychological preparation to unite the population against the government in power” and “prepare the population also issued to accept U.S. support”.

Finally in mid-2012, ZunZuneo disappeared after the several attempts to lock the network were made by the Cuban government. In June of that year, users stopped receiving messages on their phones. According to AP, the service ended not because it was censored by Cuban government, but because of the expiration of a grant that funded the program after having spent more than $1.5 million. For Cuban users, the network disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

This new Imperialism is of course cheaper, less noisy, more politically correct and less bloody. The tension between the United States and Cuba comes is long-standing, after many decades of violence and blockage. However, events like the one revealed by AP demonstrate how American methods have evolved to promote the desired regime change in Cuba. The U.S. knows that the ones to destabilize the regime are the younger ones. Even though we are not yet aware of this, our participation in the trivial matters of social networks makes us part of a group which links us to people that we do not know. Indirectly, this makes us able to mobilize ourselves in the future. If the revolution will be, it will be tweeted.