Zunzuneo - Subversion or Breaking Censorship

Zunzuneo: Subversion or Breaking Censorship; / Odelin Alfonso Torna /
HemosOido
Posted on April 9, 2014

HAVANA, Cuba — The Cuba-United States confrontation increased its pitch
with the publication by the daily Granma of the article, Zunzuneo: The
Noise of Subversion, commenting on a report by the AP news agency about
ZunZuneo and Piramideo, two text message services (SMS) accused of
having illegally complied a list of telephone numbers to which it sent
unsolicited messages on innocent topics like sports and culture, but
which later would become subversive messages to young people, considered
"susceptible to political change."

According to Granma, the cornerstone of the ZunZuneo plan — a network
that emerged in February 2010 — was to access the "data and phone
numbers of Cubacel users," the branch with the most ETECSA users. In the
same paragraph, the Communist Party daily suggests: "It is not clear to
the AP how the telephone numbers were obtained although it appears to
indicate that it was done in an illicit manner."

Maybe the AP does not know that the ETECSA database — guide of mobile
and fixed (residential and commercial) telephone numbers — was leaked in
early 2010 to laptop and desktop computers all over the Island. And
that, immediately, promotional texts began to appear issued by Cuban
artistic groups or clubs and bulk messages — unsolicited — demanding
freedom for the five Cuban spies. I remember perfectly one that said:
"To love justice is to defend the five. End injustice! Freedom now!"

The official ETECSA database is updated every year. The latest version
that circulates in the population accounts for 60 per cent of the mobile
phones, some 200,000 users, not counting the residential sector. The
weight of this application in megabytes is between 200 and 450 (by
design) and can be copied in any digital format.

Is it possible that ZunZuneo got 25 thousand subscribers in less than
six months without the need of a database as the AP well reflects? Why
not talk about the so popular data leakage by ETECSA and the
proselytizing in its unsolicited text messages?

Thanks to a friend not tied to the internal oppositon or independent
journalism, I subscribed to ZunZuneo in 2010. It was all very simple, it
just required sending an SMS to a phone number outside the border and
you would receive news about sports, culture or science or technology.
Also, one could subscribe on the Internet, at a time when the number of
connected Cubans was barely 2.9 percent of the population.

Often senior citizens receive in Cuba promotional messages about a
reggaeton concert, also the "March of the Torches Parade in Havana — The
Great Country" is convened through Cubacel, as happened January 27 this
year. Is this not, perhaps, the equivalent of infringing on "the laws of
privacy" as Granma says of ZunZuneo?

Nothing is said about the database leak by Cubacel, software that has
generated groups of clandestine users and even phantom prepaid top-ups
within the informal Cuban market.

This Thursday, the US government responded to the AP's accusations.
White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that his government was
involved in the program and that it even had been approved in Congress.
But the spokesman for the State Department, Marie Harf, denied on
Thursday that the social network was the product of a secret or
undercover operation. "We were trying to expand the space for Cubans to
express themselves," said Harf.For his part, White House spokesman Jay
Carney denied that ZunZuneo had an undercover nature although he
clarified that the US president supports efforts to expand
communications in Cuba.

AP and international media that have reproduced the "scandal" of
ZunZuneo should know that the ZunZuneo application never was used for
any "subversive" movement in Cuba. Instead, the Cuban government used
the ETECSA database to send text messages advocating the liberation of
the five spies or the attendance at pro-governmental political events.

About a year ago, the ZunZuneo messages stopped. Cubans still do not
communicate freely.

Cubanet, April 8, 2014

Translated by mlk

Source: Zunzuneo: Subversion or Breaking Censorship; / Odelin Alfonso
Torna / HemosOido | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/zunzuneo-subversion-or-breaking-censorship-odelin-alfonso-torna-hemosoido/