Cuba accuses Meta of “censorship” and of allowing the “destabilization” of the island

Cuba critical Metaparent company of Facebookaccusing her of acting with “double standards” by “censoring” accounts in her country, while allowing “disinformation and destabilization operations” against the island.

Meta reported Thursday that it had dismantled networks of false accounts in Cuba and Bolivia, which it linked to the governments of those countries and which were used to spread pro-government messages and discredit opponents.

“Our rejection of new hypocrisy and acting as an accomplice to these corporations with a known history of disinformation and destabilization operations on digital platforms against #Cuba,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on his Twitter account.

Ben Nimmo, global leader of Meta Threat Intelligence, said in a video conference with AFP on Thursday that there was an attempt to “hide who was behind this,” but the investigation “found links to the Cuban government.”

For his part, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced “the manipulation and double standards with which transnational (dis)information consortia operate against Cuba.”

He indicated that Meta has as “in charge of its policies the former campaign manager of an anti-Cuban Republican senator” and that the firm “ideologically biases” the report.

Meta deactivated 363 Facebook accounts in Cuba, in addition to 270 pages and 229 groups, as well as 72 of Instagram. The operation included other social networks such as YouTube, TikTok y Twitter.

The American company “should explain its own inauthentic and biased behavior by allowing it to denigrate, stigmatize and generate hate campaigns from Florida against our country,” Rodríguez added.

The head of Cuban foreign policy warned that despite attempts to “censor” the voice of his country and “make the truth invisible,” Cuba will continue to defend the revolution, even “in the digital field against harassment and destabilizing operations.”

Cuba, with 11.1 million inhabitants, has had data internet on cell phones since the end of 2018.

After the historic demonstrations of July 11, 2021, when thousands of people took to the streets shouting “Freedom” and “We are hungry”, Havana accused Washington of being behind these marches through social networks.