Cubans use social media to challenge leaders

Cubans are using new found social media muscle to challenge their leaders in ways hitherto unseen on the communist-run island.

Using Twiter to snipe at once-untouchable ministers over government failures is catching on in a country whose leadership once demanded, and got, total unity.

“This confluence of people entering the social networks — with the leaders within reach of their keyboards and being able to tell them what they think — has changed the dynamics of Cuban society,” says Cuban Twiter influencer Camilo Condis.

It’s all down to an explosion of mobile internet users since Cuba became one of the last countries in the world to roll out a 3G mobile internet service in December.

It suddenly put the internet within reach of anyone with a mobile phone.

President Miguel Diaz-canel said on his election in April that dragging Cuba into the modern online age was a top priority.

Analysts say he is now experiencing the other side of the coin — rolling criticism of his government.

Cuban citizens first saw the power of social media in January as they picked up the pieces ater a powerful tornado devastated large parts of Havana. Residents mobilized on Whatsapp to help thousands of disaster victims, for once without waiting for the state to react.

“Nobody knew each other before but we contacted each other through the social networks,” says 29-year-old Aida Duarte, who coordinated donations of food and material.

“We started to get out there and we created a Whatsapp group to get organised.” The strength and efficiency of the public reaction took the authorities by surprise in a country where the state has sole authority to coordinate labour.

“The social networks put a bit of pressure” on the state, Duarte says.

“I think that this civil society was already there, but it did not have the means to organise and communicate. Now it gets the message out there thanks to mobile internet,” says Condis.

Diaz-canel, 58, became the first Cuban leader to use Twiter when he opened an account in August. He made his embatled Socialist counterpart in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and Bolivian ally Evo Morales, his first follows.

The president instructed his government ministers to make themselves more visible on the social networks. They did, but increasingly, Cuba’s 11 million people can tweet back, oten with a bit of bite to boot.