Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Cubans Tighten its control over the Internet
In the article Cubans tighten its control over the internet it talks about how cubans are not getting acess to the interner very easily. "Getting online is not easy in communist-run Cuba, where the state strictly controls all web servers and recently accounced plans to crack down on illegal internet access". The article also states that cubans can go to the postal office to see their e-mail accounts, but if you want to write to a friend abroad it is expensive. "A three hour prepaid card costs $4.50, one third of the average Cuban monthly wage". This shows how expensive it is to use the internet(e-mail). In Cuba the domain is .cu and has multiplied a 1,000 times and most cases they use it to check their e-mail. They are 750,000 Internet sites but most are used to let the world about cuba and to attract tourists. "Cuba has more than 480,00 e-mails accounts, roughly the number of users, but only 98,000 users can legally surf the Internet according to the government officials". It seems that the only way they can really surf the web is through their jobs. For instance a govenment office, college university, writers, or hospitals. It shows that they can surf it but only at work where we have the internet in our homes and most people have at least one computer in their homes. "He argued that regualting the Internet usage was a democratic way to share limited resources in developing countries". This shows how other countries have limited resources and here in the United States we take out resources for granted. "The main ISP in Cuba --E.net-- announced that home users could connect if paid in dollars, at a prohibitive rate for Cuban Web surfers of 8 cents a minute". I think that it is a crazy amount of money to pay a minute to use the web. This statement shows how they are limited but can use it if they paid the money, this examines how the state has control and limits their use to the internet. "The new measures which limit and impede unofficial use, constitute yet another attempt to cut off Cubans' access to alternative views and a space for discussing them". This article was really interesting and I did not know that they are so limited to the access of the web. In our society we have at least one computer in the home that has the internet and we dont think about not having it. I think that most people spend at least one hour a day on the internet to check mail, shop, and talk o people online. I dont know what we would do if we had limited access and had to pay 8 cents a minute to use it. Lastly, I also thought it was interesting that they could use the internet but only at their work place and they could e-mail but have to go to the postal service.I thought this was a great fact to know. This article allows us to see what goes on in other countries that we might of not known otherwise.
