The Politics of Internet Access and Expression in Cuba

Ellery Biddle is a Policy Analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology and a volunteer author for Global Voices Online, where she writes on Internet policy in Latin America. Her interests and research center around the politics of Internet access and digital expression in Cuba. Ellery earned a dual Master’s degree from the University of Chicago in Latin American Studies and Public Policy Studies. She is an alumnus of the Chicago Policy Review.

Advocacy for Internet “openness” seems to lie at the core of the work of digital rights groups in the U.S. What qualifies as an “open” Internet? Is there such a thing as too open?  Some argue that more Internet regulation is needed to protect against things like child pornography and piracy.

I think that even avid proponents of an open Internet do not equate “openness” with zero regulation. This became clear during the net neutrality debate, where supporters of the open Internet actually lobbied for more regulation to ensure that the Internet would remain open.

Child pornography is illegal and there are already regulatory mechanisms in place to combat this problem. The digital rights community takes this issue very seriously. On the question of piracy, it is important to recognize that this is already illegal – yet as we know, it is impossible to completely eradicate the practice. Proposed laws like SOPA attempt to do this, but have adverse affects on completely lawful speech, and can stifle innovation. It is critical for policymakers to take an approach where they balance the interests of industry (both Internet companies and the content industry) and those of Internet users. The goal is to preserve the Internet’s openness while addressing legitimate concerns about illegal content and practices.

Your expertise lies in technology in Cuba. Is the average Cuban able to access the Internet?

There are two Internet service providers in Cuba, both of which have been created out of public-private partnerships between foreign telecommunications companies and the Cuban government. In short, this means that there is a government ministry that administrates Internet access for all citizens.

Due to economic, bandwidth, and presumably political restrictions, Internet access is only made available to those who need it for professional use. As a result, only high-level government officials, researchers, doctors, and other information-based professionals have access to the global Internet, because they need information from the Internet to do their work. Other kinds of workers are not so lucky. For instance, it is assumed that there is nothing the Internet can offer that will help a bus driver become a better bus driver. So a bus driver will not be given Internet access, because her profession does not require it.

Some Cubans do manage to use the Internet in other ways, often by paying high fees to get online at hotel Internet cafés, or by borrowing their friends’ connections.

There is very little evidence of pervasive Internet filtering (online technical censorship) in Cuba. Given the relatively low number of Cubans who regularly use the global Internet (less than ten percent), the government may have little incentive to filter online content.

In a country with such low levels of Internet and ICT penetration, what impact has the Internet had in Cuba?

Although most Cubans do not have access to the global Internet, many are able to communicate online through email, which is much more widely available to citizens. It is common for Cubans to exchange information and media from the Internet via email, or by loading content onto flash drives or CDs and sharing them among friends and family. This is to say that while they may not get online frequently, online media, writing, and conversations do reach Cubans through other means – an Internet “offline,” as it were.

Bloggers and human rights advocates on the island have also begun to use their blogs and cell phones to document and post information and images about abuses committed by police or other authorities.  This has been a powerful tool for drawing attention to human rights issues in Cuba, and for connecting groups on the island with those working in other parts of the world.

Do you anticipate that restrictions on Internet access will one day be loosened there, or will this only be possible if a new government comes to power?

There is no way to know precisely what will happen in the future. In the coming years, the quality of Internet access may improve, but Ministry of Information Science officials have said that access will not be ‘socialized’ (i.e. made widely available) in the near term.

If the U.S. were to lift the embargo and export controls on telecommunications companies, the Cuban government would have to decide whether or not to increase ICT access, as it would suddenly become much more affordable for them to do so. This would also give Cubans increased access to new communications technologies like cell phones no matter what – once it becomes legal to make transactions between Cuba and US-based companies, Cubans are simply going to have greater access to all kinds of technologies, regardless of official policy.

It is a bit naïve to assume that a completely new government is on the horizon – while many Cubans would like to see this, many others hope for a “third way,” in which the system can change substantially without being completely overhauled. For now, there is no way to know what will happen in the future. But one thing that all Cuban bloggers seem to agree on is that no matter what change lies ahead, they want all Cubans to be able to use the Internet freely.

Feature photo: cc/Ѕolo