Miguel Díaz-Canel's Futile Attempt to Suppress Digital Activism and Independent Media in Cuba

As Cuba grapples with profound structural challenges, the government is once again ramping up its efforts to quash digital activism and independent media. The regime's narrative aims to delegitimize all social media criticism by framing it as part of a "media war" orchestrated by foreign adversaries.

In a recent address, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel claimed that there are "two Cubas": one "real," which he describes as creatively resilient, and another "virtual," rife with hatred, manipulation, and fake news. "We are facing a media campaign to discredit the revolution, filled with hate, slander, lies, and character assassination," Díaz-Canel stated at the IV Coloquio Patria held on March 19 at the University of Havana.

"There is a Cuba that you see here... And there is another Cuba, the one on social media," he added, attempting to undermine the numerous reports circulating in the digital realm about the island's dire situation.

The Growing Fear of Uncontrolled Information

While Díaz-Canel's rhetoric is not new, it underscores the Cuban political apparatus's growing fear of an information breach that it can no longer control. Social media has reshaped the country's communication landscape, allowing thousands of citizens to document in real time the food shortages, endless queues, blackouts, healthcare system collapse, and abuses of power.

In response, the regime has constructed a binary narrative that pits the so-called "heroic" and revolutionary Cuba against a "virtual" Cuba manipulated by foreign interests. Yet, this narrative deliberately ignores the fact that behind each critical social media post are real Cubans: activists, journalists, mothers, retirees, workers, and young people documenting what the official press remains silent about.

The Legal and Media Crackdown

What the regime labels a "campaign of hate" is simply the exercise of freedom of expression in a country where peaceful protest or merely sharing an uncomfortable opinion can lead to imprisonment. Over recent years, the Cuban government has deployed a series of legal, technological, and media measures to curb the flow of critical information online.

The new Penal Code, approved in 2022, introduced vaguely defined and dangerously broad criminal offenses to penalize digital activism. These include crimes against "state security" or the "spread of false news," which allow for the sanction of users for social media posts without substantial evidence.

Moreover, regulations such as Decree-Law 370, known as the "Gag Law," have been used to fine and persecute independent journalists like Camila Acosta, punished for expressing anti-government opinions on Facebook. The recently enacted Social Communication Law further strengthens state control over digital content, establishing a legal framework that protects the official narrative and excludes dissenting voices.

State-Controlled Media and Public Misinformation

The regime's actions go beyond repressive legality; it also leverages state media to misinform, manipulate, and stigmatize. Cuban television programs have publicly called for "exemplary punishments" for those who "slander the revolution" on social media. Official journalists like Rosa Miriam Elizalde have gone as far as to label independent media as "media shanties," accusing them of profiting from others' suffering and spreading "lies paid for from abroad."

The regime's rhetoric insists on portraying digital media and social platforms as spaces tainted by the CIA, the "counter-revolution," and the destabilizing machinery of the "empire." This paranoid view reduces legitimate popular discontent to merely a tool of ideological warfare, seeking to deny or justify that the economic collapse, mass exodus, and widespread despair are consequences of the system itself.

Simultaneously, the government promotes an idealized image of the "real Cuba": a blockaded but dignified nation, poor yet united, with a government "working hard" to solve problems and a people "resisting with creativity." This symbolic operation aims to reinforce the narrative of national heroism, appealing to a supposed revolutionary sentiment increasingly disconnected from everyday reality.

The objective is clear: to combat the rise of critical thought, civic organization, and international visibility that Cubans have achieved thanks to the internet. Since the protests of July 11, the government has realized that it is losing control of the narrative. Thus, it has intensified its victimization discourse, criminalized digital activism, and attempted to control every meme circulating online.

However, the "virtual Cuba" that the regime fears so much is not an artificial construct nor a distortion imposed from outside. It is, rather, the stark reflection of a country without freedoms, where thousands of citizens strive to break the information blockade and exercise their right to self-narration.

Social media is not Cuba's enemy. They are tools of citizen empowerment in a nation where the state controls almost everything. They are spaces where Cubans can denounce, share, debate, and organize. They are, ultimately, a window into a Cuba that is also real, even if the totalitarian power seeks to deny it.

Denying this reality, persecuting it, or attempting to silence it only highlights the regime's true fear: losing control over the narrative and, consequently, the means to impose its "truth."