Cuban dictatorship signs ‘cybersecurity’ pact with communist China

As if the internet were not censored and controlled enough in Cuba, the Castro regime is now partnering up with the most notorious censor in the world: China.

Via Diario de Cuba (my translation):

More control in cyberspace: Cuban government signs agreement with China

The Cuban regime on Monday signed a cybersecurity agreement with China, which exercises an iron grip on the use of social media by its own citizens. The Chinese may have also played a role in the shutting down of the internet in Cuba during the anti-government protests that took place in July 2021.

Mayra Arevich, Cuba’s Communications Minister, and Cao Shuming, the vice-head of China’s Cyberspace Administration, signed the agreement, according to Cuban state-run news outlet Prensa Latina.

“We sign the Cybersecurity Upgrade agreement with China’s Cyberspace Administration, which ratifies the desire to work for a developing cyberspace with the wellbeing of its people in mind,” the Cuban official wrote on Twitter.

However, for both regimes, the wellbeing of the people seems to go hand in hand with the censorship of free expression on the internet. In June 2022, China’s Cyberspace Administration announced a bill aimed at exerting even more control on the use of social media by its citizens.

The new regulation demands all social media services and video platforms to review comments by their users before they are published. It also obligates platform administrators to employ teams of content moderators that “are proportional to the size of the service” offered and to improve the professional quality of the personnel responsible for reviewing content.

The new law also specifies punishment for infractions: users who do not comply with the law face warnings, fines, suspensions from the platform, or even being banned from the service.

Furthermore, it prohibits the expression of statements “disseminating information that disturbs the normal order and that is not in line with public opinion.”

Continue reading (in Spanish) HERE.