US Government Outed for Secretly Creating Social Networking Site for Cubans
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), a government organization that promotes economic development and combats poverty abroad, secretly created asocial networking site designed to stir unrest and undermine the Cuban government, according to an Apr. 3, 2014 investigation by the Associated Press (AP).
The program, known as ZunZuneo (the sound of a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet), drew nearly 40,000 subscribers and lasted more than two years. Cuban users were unaware of the American origins of the program. According to AP, the plan was to stoke political unrest and undermine the Castro regime by secretly hiring writers to supply the social network with texts critical of the government. ZunZuneo was able to bypass Cuba’s strict restrictions on internet use (including the use of Twitter) by using text messages as the primary means of communication.
Cuban officials allegedly and unsuccessfully attempted to trace the text messages and hack into ZunZuneo. USAID told AP that ZunZuneo ceased operations in Sep. 2012 when a Congressional grant for the program ended. Congress has given USAID more than $200 million in funding for “democracy assistance” programs in Cuba since 1996. According to interviews and documents obtained by the AP, USAID and its contractors established shell companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to disguise the funding for ZunZuneo, and recruited contractors to work on the project under false pretenses. It is currently unknown where the idea for ZunZuneo originated or whether President Obama knew about it.
