From
The Associated Press:
The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" — a
communications network designed to undermine the communist government in
Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign
banks . . .
USAID and its contractors went to
extensive lengths to conceal Washington's ties to the project,
according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP. They set up
front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail,
and recruited CEOs without telling them they would be working on a U.S.
taxpayer-funded project.
"There
will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement,"
according to a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord Inc., one of the project's
creators. "This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the
service and to ensure the success of the Mission." . . .
USAID said in a statement that it is "proud of its work in Cuba to
provide basic humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and
fundamental freedoms, and to help information flow more freely to the
Cuban people," whom it said "have lived under an authoritarian regime"
for 50 years. The agency said its work was found to be "consistent with
U.S. law."
Interestingly, the initial subscriber base appears to have been put together after the shell corporations illicitly obtained the contact information of thousands of Cubans targeted by the government.
The social media project began development in 2009 after
Washington-based Creative Associates International obtained a
half-million Cuban cellphone numbers. It was unclear to the AP how the
numbers were obtained, although documents indicate they were done so
illicitly from a key source inside the country's state-run provider.
Project organizers used those numbers to start a subscriber base.