US increasingly using new media to reach Cuba
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
AP Hispanic Affairs Writer
MIAMI -- The Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami has added several
"ghost" websites to its portfolio, allowing people in Cuba to view the
U.S. government's Marti networks online without being detected by their
government.
The Cuban government controls the island's local media and limits access
to outside sources. Radio Marti provides news from inside Cuba,
particularly about dissidents and other issues the government there does
not cover, as well as global news, and can be heard in a number of
places around the island. But the government there often jams TV Marti.
The websites went up earlier this month and received more than 400 hits
from Cuba, the U.S. and Iran during their first week. It's a tiny
number, though the launch was done with little fanfare. U.S. officials
said they were unsure as to who is viewing the sites from Iran.
The problem remains, though, that most Cubans don't have access to the
Internet, and those that do have to negotiate a system that has a
limited capacity, making online traffic extremely slow.
Cuba Broadcasting Director Carlos Garcia-Perez said the agency is also
texting in four messages a day to the island through online phone
servers like Skype that do not identify the texter as being from the
Martis. A text sent at 1 a.m. Monday alerted Cubans that Osama bin Laden
had been killed.
The Office of Cuba Broadcasting says it will change the websites and the
phone servers frequently to avoid being blocked by the Cuban government.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/03/2198574/us-increasingly-using-new-media.html
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