After the protests, Cuban government cracks down on social media leaders

The Cuban government has cracked down on social media activists and influencers after the protests that exploded across the island on Sunday and were harshly repressed, leaving at least one dead, dozens of injured and hundreds arrested.

Several Twitter and other digital media activists who protested peacefully were detained in what observers described as a government attempt to teach them a lesson and discourage further protests.

Ariel González Falcón, a 21-year-old medical student known on social networks as Yo Uso Mi Nasobuco – I wear my mask, popular for its memes criticizing the government, was detained Sunday during the protests in Havana, according to relatives and friends. He remains under arrest and other influencers have launched a campaign for his release, #FreeArielFalcón.

“The government seems to have focused on him because of the large number of young students who follow him on social networks,” his brother, Arnaldo Trujillo Falcón, told el Nuevo Herald from his home in Spain.

The medical student was arrested “when he went into the streets, peacefully, to ask for medicines, food and freedom of expression. Three agents dressed in civilian clothes threw him to the floor, beat him, took away his cell phone and took him to a police station,” the brother said.

His mother, Claudette Falcón, tried to visit him Friday at the Jóvenes del Cotorro prison but was denied entry. “My parents spent the whole morning there, and in the end my mother called me, crying (because) they were told that my brother will be detained for another four days,” he added.

González Falcón “represents a new effort by youths who simply want a better country. It is important to note the tremendous support that it is receiving on social networks,” the brother said.

State security agents also detained Cuban YouTuber Dina Correa Fernández, known as Dina Stars, while she did a live interview with Spanish television Tuesday. She was released 24 hours later, and said she was accused of “instigating a crime.” She said police also detained others less well known, including some who don’t even have social media accounts.

González Falcón “is a student who creates memes during his free time. He believed, like me, that going out to peacefully chant ‘Viva Free Cuba’ was a right,” Correa told El Nuevo. “Well, it seems he was wrong, along with the nearly 200 other people disappeared or jailed,” she added.

A Twitter activist who calls himself El Ingeniero and asked to remain anonymous because of fears of government reprisals said officials “have noticed the great influence of young people and are trying to cut or minimize that influence.” He added that the regime cracked down on Twitter accounts that were most popular or activists who had the most followers on the social networks. In the case of González Falcón, he fears the government wants to “teach a lesson with a well-known account.”

“It is the humor account with the most followers in the country. His face is well known, so they grabbed him as an example to other Twitter and memes activists,” he added. González Falcón has nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter.

As the protests broke out Sunday, the government started to block Internet access to social networks. Even Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, a pro-government TV journalist, noted “the cut to social networks.”

“That’s the area where the war against Cuba is being organized,” she said.

Cuban ruler Miguel

Díaz-Canel and other government officials have alleged a social media campaign organized from the United States is provoking the unrest and protests. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told a news conference Wednesday that there have been “acts of incitement to violence, to terrorist activities … from accounts based in the U.S. cyberspace … that receive direct financing from the U.S. Government.

Rafael Santos, a 36-yearold regular Twitter user in Havana, said the government cracked down on the Twitter activists because of their influence “in a medium they cannot control.”

Some weeks back, Cuban Twitter activists and other influencers started to use the label #SOSCuba, which went viral, to denounce the precarious state of the island’s public health system — facing a shortage of medicines and collapsed by the record number of Covid cases — to “collect medicines, humanitarian items, to help the provinces most affected,” said Santos.

“The government started to attack that initiative,” he added, claiming that it sought to “discredit the health system” and that its promoters were “mercenaries.” The government has blamed the influencers for the protests because “it’s something that escaped their control,” Santos added.

“Right now the only thing they can do against the social networks is to threaten and spread a lot of fear,” said Santos.

“They are not used to the existence of civil disobedience.”

Other social media accounts with large numbers of followers have been suspended, according to a 24-year-old Twitter user in Cuba who asked for anonymity to avoid government reprisals

In Cuba, where the government controls all media, “the memes are how the news are mostly disseminated and how the people make fun of the rulers and public figures,” he said. The government “has realized that (memes) are a weapon that reaches the people” and has started to use memes to disseminate pro-government messages.”

Thanks to the #SOSCuba hashtag on social networks, “the world and all of Cuba saw the reality of the health system” and received timely reports on the protests, he added.

Another Twitter user who asked for anonymity said the government allegations that Cuban Twitter activists receive U.S. financing are absurd. “That’s a tale that maybe they believed when it came from Fidel Castro many years ago, but that doesn’t work any more,” he said.

The Havana youth agreed that social networks played a fundamental role in the people’s “awakening.” Their way to change the situation was peaceful protests, he noted.

“I think it’s brilliant that we are organizing ourselves as individuals, without the need for government orders,” he said. “This is unprecedented in Cuba, that so many people are capable of organizing to help without being ordered, without a summons to do it, that they do it because of a need.”

Cubans’ ability to organize themselves to demand something “can end the tyranny,” he added.

All the Twitter activists who spoke with el Nuevo Herald said they deplored that some Cubans took advantage of the protests to vandalize government shops and offices, because the government is now using them to try to delegitimize the protests.

Correa Fernández, the YouTuber known as Dina Stars, said that right now “the media pressure is extremely important.”

“I am going to stay on my social networks. It is the only weapon people have. We are going out to bare our chests,” she said. “All the censorship, and the way they responded, shutting down the Internet, exposes them more and plants the seed of doubt around the world.”

“We’re at a point where the only thing left to do is to shout, to write SOS,” she added.