Google is very proud of its new partnership with Cuba’s ETECSA, the apartheid Castro dictatorship’s telecom monopoly that has complete control over the internet on the island. They must therefore be very proud that their new tech partners are using all this new technology to continue censorship and the blocking of the free flow of information to and from the island.
John Suarez reports in Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:
Google’s new tech partner in Cuba blocks Ladies in White e-mails
Google and lost innocence
Former prisoner of conscience and opposition leader Angel Moya tweeted in frustration how Google’s Cuban partners worked in complicity with the secret police in blocking e-mails of the nonviolent opposition movement known as the Ladies in White. Below is an embedded copy of the tweet which reads in English as follows “#Havana #Cuba #ETECSA in complicity with State Security Dept blocks e-mails in Lawton when operating against Ladies in White headquarters.”
The Free Cuba Foundation released a statement today on the new relationship between Google and ETECSA, the Castro regime’s telecommunications monopoly: #LaHabana #Cuba #ETECSA en complicidad con DSE continua bloqueando salida d correos Nauta en Lawton cuando operan vs.sede @DamasdBlanco pic.twitter.com/6SAmftp06l
— Angel Juan Moya (@jangelmoya) December 15, 2016
“Google has signed an Internet deal with the Castro regime placing its technology in the hands of the dictatorship’s telecommunications monopoly ETECSA. This is the latest bit of bad news coming out of Cuba.”
This is also part of Obama’s Cuba legacy that on the surface claims to be about empowering the Cuban people but in reality has legitimized the dictatorship and empowered it with new technologies to repress Cubans.
What happened to “Don’t be evil”? Same thing that happened to “Don’t scandalize the faithful” and “Don’t insult people’s intelligence,” among other principles. When there’s some gain to be had from playing along with evil and no significant disincentive to doing so, well, the math is simple enough: collaboration happens. Ask the European Union, for starters, and if you want a “higher authority,” ask the titular Vicar of Christ.