Of course, any regime who wants to control their society hates the internet.  A dictator is pretty much powerless to control any social media site and how it’s citizens behave and express themselves.  However most dictators have pretty much accepted that the internet is in their eyes a necessary evil and have in some particular way accepted it.

There are probably only two authoritarian states which have had trouble even accepting the existence of the internet – Burma and Cuba – I would also include North Korea but they have a whole league to themselves.  Instead of following the slightly more relaxed method adopted by most regimes of filtering the content they don’t like – these two have just blocked access completely.  It’s of course a much more effective method, there are loads of problems with filtering the internet and lots of web sites which demonstrate how to bypass filters like this one  centered around anonymous surfing.

If you restrict access completely you have much more control but it of course comes at a price .  The most evident one is that of economic development, the internet is a huge global market full of opportunities which Cuba is simply missing out on.  It seems that slowly Cuba is beginning to realize it’s mistake.

It is still incredibly hard and expensive to get access to the internet in Cuba.  You still need a permit, yes you read that right you need a permit to access the world wide web in Cuba.  It’s also rather expensive as you need to access through specific controlled points.

But it is now possible for an ordinary Cuban to sit down online and surf the web – something that most of us have taken for granted for many years.  It’s still slow as well and the Cuban Government have now adopted something similar to the Chinese model which in theory allows full access but in reality starts blocking and restricting access to sites and services they don’t like.

Recently the access to Skype was blocked, your average dictators never likes communication methods that work internationally and they can’t monitor so it was hardly a surprise.  It will be interesting to see if countries like Cuba who are so far behind in internet usage will go the full mile and start investing in better infrastructure as well.  At the moment it seems little more than a token gesture and don’t expect the new breed of internet entrepreneurs to come out of Havana just yet!

Tags: anonymous surfing, cuba internet access, cuba internet filtering, cuban net access, internet filters cuba