Censorship

The United States stands with the Cuban people in their quest for democracy, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. The Cuban regime has implemented measures to curb the flow of information over the internet. While most transactions continue to be prohibited under the US's embargo on Cuba, the US government allows for certain activities to support the Cuban people’s access to information on the internet. The most relevant exemptions and authorizations pertinent to supporting the Cuban people through the provision of certain internet and related telecommunications services are:

The federal government is investigating mysterious signals coming from Havana that are jamming popular frequencies. HAM radio operators in Florida have said that Cuba is jamming radio frequencies that prevent them from communicating with operators in the country since anti-government protests began.

The wave of spontaneous protests that rocked Cuba on July 11 was propelled by social media and the proliferation of mobile internet, which Cubans have only had for the past three years. The government responded by leaving the island virtually incommunicado for two days. To contain the spread of mass demonstrations, authorities cut internet service, along with the fixed phone lines of some activists in the island.

Where there’s a coup, there will probably be an internet outage. At least 35 countries have restricted access to the internet or social media platforms at least once since 2019, according to Netblocks, a group which tracks internet freedom.

Freedom of the Press Foundation's newest report shows that there have been at least 117 verified cases of a journalist being arrested or detained on the job in the US in 2020. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is also still investigating more than a dozen additional reports of arrests or detentions. Arrests of journalists skyrocketed by more than 1200% in comparison to 2019. In just one week, from May 29 - June 4, more reporters were arrested in the U.S. than in the previous three years combined. Arrests occurred in more than two dozen cities across the country.

On Oct 15, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he will move forward with clarifying the meaning of Section 230.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai issued the following statement on Section 230 of the Communications Act:

Six senior officials at the US Agency for Global Media have filed a whistleblower complaint with the State Department’s inspector general and the US Office of Special Counsel, alleging that they were retaliated against for raising concerns about the new political leadership installed earlier in 2020 by President Donald Trump. The 32-page complaint accuses top officials at the taxpayer-funded media group of abusing their authority, violating the law and mismanaging the organization.

President Donald Trump’s ongoing assault against Twitter may represent the most egregious violation of the First Amendment by a president since Richard M. Nixon went to war against this newspaper almost half a century ago. Not since the McCarthy era has our country experienced such an effort to neuter the press and evade the government accountability that comes only through meaningful reporting. Consider what could lie ahead.

For people who spend a lot of time on TikTok, the last few months have been surreal: a president with no presence on the platform has been agitating to ban it on the basis of national security.