THE CUBAN BLOGSPHERE

Despite the fact that Cuba has the lowest, and possibly the slowest, rate of connectivity to Internet in the Americas, digital tools such as PCs, CD disks, and flash memories are spreading throughout the island. The Cuban government control access to the World Wide Web and has created a parallel “Intranet” –an internal, government controlled, version of the Internet. The current Minister of Communications and former Minister of Interior, Ramiro Valdés, described the mission of his institution in terms of “taming the wild horse of Internet”. The PCs that are now sold to the population come without a modem or CD burner.

But Cuban bloggers inside the island and from the Diaspora has built a digital bridge to exchange information and help each other. In the academia and other professions personal blogs are multiplying at considerable speed. Some are encourage by the government who trust their authors to spread their official perspectives, others are the outlet of dissenting views who creatively found ways to evade governmental controls. It is significant for a country with a large digital divide that a blogger as Yoani Sánchez has been recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential individuals while her blog (Generation Y) has received several international awards. What follows is a small sample of a growing list of Cuban blogs and sites.