I see a bad comedy where they pitch this to "secret VC's" and talk about how Cuba is simply the "beach head" with plans to expand into Venezuela next. They're raising now due to an opportunity to take huge share from Twitter in Turkey and Egypt. (where they've gone viral despite only being in Spanish)
US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
41–50 of 145 posts
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions Is it? Oppressive regimes can pose a direct threat to human well-being and sometimes the best thing you can do for people's humanity is to overthrough said regime.
Human well-being, along with literacy, are Cuba's strong suit. They send doctors all over the world, such as during environmental disasters. During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the U.S. sent troops, weird. But I guess the Haitians are free to eat mud cakes. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/29/food.internatio...
There's more to well-being than being nominally healthy and literate.
Cuba might have great doctors, but they're not much use to political prisoners. Cubans might be literate, but they can't read whatever they want. [1]
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#43I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
Right... as if the US could not do anything else to help Cuba and it's people. (E.g. abolishing the trade embargo.)
There's no reason those options have to be mutually exclusive. Sadly, I doubt ending the trade embargo would by itself push Cuba to allow free speech and open dissent.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, the US has a pretty checkered history regarding Cuba if you're going to talk about altruism. I'd say we've done more to inadvertantly prop up that regime than to undermine it. There are 3 nominally communist countries left in the world, from a high of dozens -- Cuba's one of them, and probably the closest to actually being communist (China and North Korea being technocratic-capitalist and pharaonic, respectivel…
Agreed. I definitely don't think we've always had the best policies on Cuba, and also am not entirely convinced Cuba is itself the best target of this sort of effort. But regardless I think the tactics themselves are commendable. Speech, not guns.
I think a more commendable tactic would be to not stick their oar into sovereign state's business with a mind to ruin their systems of government. I suppose not killing people is commendable, but it is pretty low bar for moral behaviour.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#45I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
I know what you mean, and mostly agree with you. What they did was actually a good thing, but for the wrong reasons. I doubt that on a high-up level, this was done for the good of the everyday Cuban person.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human well-being, along with literacy, are Cuba's strong suit. They send doctors all over the world, such as during environmental disasters. During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the U.S. sent troops, weird. But I guess the Haitians are free to eat mud cakes. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/29/food.internatio...
There's more to well-being than being nominally healthy and literate. Cuba might have great doctors, but they're not much use to political prisoners. Cubans might be literate, but they can't read whatever they want. [1] 1: https://www.hrw.org/americas/cuba
Maybe there would be more political freedom elsewhere if all the orange, red, purple revolutions weren't being orchestrated by washington.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#47This almost sounds like something that someone would make up. Why the hell would the US Govt. want so much unrest all over the world? Haven't they learned from their screw ups in the past [0]? US supported Egyptian army is doing god knows what in Egypt; the US has been involved in the two biggest wars in recent memory (Iraq, Afghanistan), and in not-so-covert operations in countries like Pakistan, Syria and the like.…
I think you typed "unrest" when you meant "democracy". The Egyptian army is not perfect, but the Muslim Brotherhood was worse. Iraq and Afghanistan are also better off then they were under Saddam and the Taliban.
The Egyption progression was military dictatorship -> revolution, elections -> elected Islamists -> everyone realising how awful Islamists are even if elected -> military dictatorship.
Turkey has been struggling with a lighter and less violent version of the same issue for a while; you can have a democratic country only until you elect a religious party determined to violate minority rights, at which point military secularism starts to look good.
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#48You could read this as a cautionary tale about the difficulty in launching a social networking service: Even with $1.6 million cash (earmarked for a development project in Pakistan) and 500,000 mobile phone subscriber records (stolen from the incumbent telecom), their free service couldn't reach 5% market penetration and was shut down when it ran out of money.
But it said in the article that they decided to keep penetration under 1% of the population so as not to arouse suspicion.
Plus, they had a lot more limitations than your average Silicon Valley startup. (edit: second point)
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#49I'm sure this will bring me lots of downvotes, but I actually applaud these tactics. Helping people in oppressive regimes to communicate freely with each other is one of the more humanitarian actions the US can take, and this sort of connectivity is critical in allowing people a degree of freedom even under totalitarian governments. Truly repressive regimes are out there, and without foreign interference and investme…
So you'd support other governments doing it to America, then?
(Because they do it already..)
Re: US Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter' To Stir Unrest
#50This almost sounds like something that someone would make up. Why the hell would the US Govt. want so much unrest all over the world? Haven't they learned from their screw ups in the past [0]? US supported Egyptian army is doing god knows what in Egypt; the US has been involved in the two biggest wars in recent memory (Iraq, Afghanistan), and in not-so-covert operations in countries like Pakistan, Syria and the like.…
Strong governments are an obstacle to corporate ambitions of taking over the resources of the country.
That's an unfortunately popular belief, but not the way things happen in the real world.
In the real world, corporations use and corrupt the facilities of governments to undermine restrictions on the behaviors they want while supporting restrictions on newcomers to their markets or against their customers.
Blindly strengthening government without dealing unambiguously with corruption only strengthens the weapon that these crony capitalists have to use against their competitors and customers.